Red Dawn | 
| Director: John Milius
Actors: Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, Darren Dalton
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $3.35
You Save: $11.63 (78%)
New (23) Used (47) from $3.35
Rating:  254 reviews
Sales Rank: 10275
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 2
Picture Format: Array
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0792838041
UPC: 027616699824
EAN: 9780792838043
ASIN: 0792838041
Theatrical Release Date: August 10, 1984
Release Date: February 4, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The Ronald Reagan 1980s were all about going back to the future--rewriting the past to better suit Reagan's upbeat vision of the present. So, Sylvester Stallone's John Rambo (a psychotic, shell-shocked Vietnam vet in the original film, transformed into a flag-waving hero in the sequel) was able to go back to Southeast Asia and "correct" history by decisively (and single-handedly) winning that messy ol' war on behalf of America. Red Dawn is a paranoid cold-war cautionary tale that presents us not with a rosy alternative past, but with an ominous vision of the future, metaphorically plopping a piece of Russian-occupied Afghanistan into America's back yard. In this celebration of the Second Amendment, storm troopers from the Evil Empire descend upon the inadequately defended United States and hold America hostage. Stealthily avoiding the invaders, a motley group of red-blooded, small-town, gun-toting teenagers go underground to form the Wolverines, a guerilla resistance squad dedicated to making those Russkies rue the day they parachuted onto U.S. soil. It's a darn good thing those kids had the right to keep and bear arms, huh! Written and directed by macho filmmaker John Milius, the self-described "Zen fascist" who also cowrote Apocalypse Now, as well as the horrifying shark story Robert Shaw tells in Jaws. The cast includes Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey (a few years before she and Swayze took up Dirty Dancing), Charlie Sheen, Powers Boothe, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ben Johnson. Red Dawn was a commercial success, although audiences invariably split into two camps, finding it either patriotic or appalling. Whatever your verdict, the film remains a telling reflection of its era. --Jim Emerson
Description
Red Dawn opens with one of the most shocking scenes ever filmed; on a peaceful morning, through the windows of a high school classroom, students see paratroopers land on the varsity football field: the invasion of the United States has begun! As their town is overrun by foreign nationals, eight teenagers escape to the mountains. Taking the name of their high school football team, the Wolverines, they wage unremitting guerrilla warfare in defense of their parents, their friends and their country. Powerful, chilling and absolutely gripping, this outstanding film features some of today's most popular stars, including Patrick Swayze (Ghost), Charlie Sheen (Platoon), C. Thomas Howell (The Hitcher), Lea Thompson ("Caroline in the City"), Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) and veteran actor Harry Dean Stanton (Alien). When it comes to thrilling entertainment, Red Dawn wins the war with a vengeance!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 249 more reviews...
 Some people will say anything. July 1, 2009
G. L. Smith (Combined Fleet Activities, Yokosuka, Japan)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have read many reviews of Red Dawn. Those who hate it do so for political reasons. They often repeat what they have heard from their fellow travelers. Often they claim that Wm Smith's character does not speak an intelligible Russian.
Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse and a Master's Degree in Russian Studies from UCLA. He taught Russian at UCLA before abandoning his Ph.D. studies for an MGM contract. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Munich while learning languages through the military. Smith is fluent in Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French and German. During the Korean War he was a Russian Intercept Interrogator and was awarded a Purple Heart. I found this same information from numerous sites. See the movie. Do your own research. Be an adult.
AVENGE ME!!! May 27, 2009
Jason (Backwater, Alabama)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THE WAR: A possible future result of the Cold War, where the Russians and Cubans try to join Vodka and cigars for WWIII, invade through commercial airliners, and take the U.S. from within. For the most part, this was made as a warning message to the Russians: Do NOT try it. If you invade, our effing teenagers are violent, will join the war, and will destroy you.
STORY: A group of Colorado high-schoolers (Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Gray, Lea Thompson) led by a recent graduate (Patrick Swayze), toughened under his watchful father's eyes, see their small town under siege from Russian and Cuban paratroopers. After initial doubt, they flee to the remote wilderness of the surrounding mountains when they see the opening salvo of WWIII. The commies thought the town a perfect strategic point for indoctrination and POW camps, but they didn't close the noose quick or tight enough. At first the kids are in the hills to survive, but soon they harden into guerilla soldiers, capable of ambivalently disemboweling a Russian, and making a Cuban-ear necklace without batting an eye.
PATRIOTISM: When the meet up Col. Andy Tanner (Powers Boothe), the kids learn that only China and England stand with the U.S., and that the rest of Europe is too busy doing their nails, sipping lattes, and being emo. Only through the survival instinct, ingenious military strategy, superior firepower, and sheer American will has the enemies cunning plan been stopped, as Tanner puts it, "Butt cold!" Protect this house!
FAVORITE BATTLE(S): Faced with their first encounter, the kids pull out bows, arrows, and a few of daddy's shotguns to destroy a couple Russian officers who are sight-seeing instead of fighting (typical officers). After a perfectly placed arrow between the shoulder blades, one Russian weeps like a little girl for her mother. When another gets impaled by the rain of shotgun shell, the impact snaps his spine like a dry toothpick. The last moron crawls to his jeep, dragging body parts, looking like he just lost a really long paintball game, and cries into microphone for God - as if he's not on America's side - before Patrick Swayze makes breezeway through the Russkie's mongoloid skull.
FAVORITE LINE: WOLVERINES!
THE MESSAGE: The worst decision any foreign Army could make is to invade America. Waaaaaay too many private citizens own weapons for any enemy to stop, and eventually the 2nd Amendment's true militia nature would end up causing the slaughter of all of those stupid enough to invade. DO NOT try it, commies.
 Jim Emerson's Amazon.com Review is useless. May 12, 2009
Voltron1984 (San Francisco, CA, USA, EARTH)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Red Dawn was a theatrical response to the 1983 ABCTV movie "The Day After" A conventional non-nuclear attack on U.S. soil by communist nations like Cuba and Central America supported by the Soviet Union was considered a more realistic scenario than a push-button thermonuclear war. After the movie's release, schoolteachers talked about this issue in classrooms informing children and teens nationwide that retreating to the mountains and forests of rural America offered the best chance for survival, and Red Dawn was the only movie that addressed that concern in a present-day style scenario, and NOT a post-apocalyptic future. To explain the movie as a simple icon of 80's paranoia, Mad Max future, or Reagan-era propaganda is just stacking bias with more layers of bias. The idea of a 'nuclear freeze' to halt production of nuclear warheads was a hot-button election issue from the opposition which never mounted to anything because Reagan won 49 of 50 states in a landside against Mondale. The fear of an attack on America was considered quite real at the time. It was not simply 2nd ammendment propaganda or revisionist history discribed by the main Amazon.com review. The bulk of the negative criticism of Red Dawn at the time of its release was primarily its violence. It was considered the most violent movie ever released to mainstream cinema due to the unusually high number of characters being brutally killed. This movie should be seen as one more example of how Americans thought about the world at the time when globalization was feared if it was controlled by a possible rise of global communism out of world famine. Red Dawn, in my opinion, is a pop culture classic.
Great classic eye opener May 5, 2009
Peter Colt (Manorville, NY USA)
This is a great classic eye opener to remind us why we need to protect our second amendment rights. You never know when you will need to defend yourself and country. Good movie to watch with your teenagers.
Couldn't Resist a Swipe at Reagan, Huh? March 17, 2009
Michael S. Spurlock (Missoula, MT USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
How childish.
Anyone who speaks disparagingly of Reagan or Red Dawn now has a suspiciously convenient case of amnesia. The Soviet Union WAS a threat, invasion WAS a possibility, especially with our nation weakened by the very collaborationist forces mentioned in the film. All the liberal revisionism in the world isn't going to wipe that from the minds of those who lived through that era. The brainwashed may call the film paranoid, but anyone who was actually sober in the 80s can tell you, replace the Soviets with Chinese and this could happen today.
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