Red Dawn (1984) is the movie we are recasting this week. A highly implausible tale about Russia and Cuba (with a bit of Nicaragua sprinkled in) invading America and occupying Anytown, USA. Of course, this occupation is thwarted by a group of youths spearheaded by Patrick Swayze, who is swiftly becoming one of my favorite actors of all time. I guess I don’t have as much exposure to his body of work as I once thought I did, and as I learn more about him as an actor and as a person, the more I appreciate his talent.
In addition to The Swayze, we have performances from very young versions of 80’s staples in Charlie Sheen, C.Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey, and fan-favorite cameos from the recently deceased Harry Dean Stanton and Powers Boothe. This is another movie that I would hesitate to call “good”, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.
I always like to disclose when it’s my first time watching one of these movies, and this is definitely one of those cases. To be honest, I was not expecting much going in. It is a fairly star-studded film, but most of these stars were ‘teenagers’ (aka younger looking adults in their 20’s), and it was still before most of them had actually broken out as big time actors.
With all of that working against it, I have to say I loved this movie. Now don’t get me wrong, there are A LOT of plotholes, but by the time the action actually started to ramp up (and boy does it, quickly), I did not care about that in the least. I was all-in. This movie rules and I retroactively hate the fact that they remade this movie.
- Chris
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