Red Dawn Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Red Dawn Blu-ray Movie Review

The Red Menace comes to Colorado.

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson March 18, 2017

Few films embody the zeitgeist of an era or tap into the nation's collective unconscious more so than John Milius's Red Dawn. This nuclear war drama was released during President Reagan's reelection campaign and on the coattails of the Republican National Convention in Dallas, TX. It came out at a time when much of the country was flaunting flag-waving nationalism, über-patriotism, and freedom from foreign aggressors. About a year earlier, Reagan had delivered his "Evil Empire Speech" denouncing the Soviet Union's system of government as the insidious evil and forecasting the fall of global communism. A day after Red Dawn opened in domestic theaters on August 10, Reagan went on his Saturday radio program and, not realizing that the microphone was turned on, declared: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw the Soviet Union forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." Although Reagan's proclamation was meant as an off-the-cuff joke, it hit a nerve in the country's xenophobia and growing concern of Soviet domination. Milius's movie played with Americans' worst fears by presenting them as eventualities, albeit in a fictional context. Before the main titles roll, Milius flashes several news-related bullet points that are set against a black screen. One announces that the Soviet Union has suffered the worst wheat harvest in fifty-five years. (This probably refers to the economic effects that a US grain embargo had on Russia after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. This was imposed during the Carter administration.) Another title states that Soviets have invaded Poland following labor and food riots. The final title indicates the dissolution of NATO with the US standing alone. The first full scene shows students gathered in a classroom for a lecture delivered by Mr. Teasdale (Frank McRae) on, appropriately enough, Genghis Khan and the Mongol invasion. Milius then dramatizes the opposite scenario of Reagan's Saturday radio address. "Russkies" or Soviet paratroopers have landed on the lawn at this Colorado high school in Calumet. Mr. Teasdale goes outside to try to befriend the surprise visitors but is shot down for no reason. This sends the school in a tail spin and pandemonium erupts across the entire town. The communist-led takeover is spearheaded by both Russian and Hispanic military commandos, which are anchored by Bratchenko (Vladek Sheybal) and Colonel Ernesto Bella (Ron O'Neal), a Che Guevara lookalike.

Jed Eckert (Patrick Swayze), his brother Matt (Charlie Sheen), and their friends flee the scene on a pickup truck and head for the wilderness. Jed is a prototypical Reagan hero: tough and resolute and one has no qualms about laying down the ground rules for his fellow Wolverines (the nickname of the school's sport teams). Jed is also President of the Calumet Junior/Senior class, the team's quarterback, and eldest member of the group. The Eckerts' friend, Robert (C. Thomas Howell), is younger and initially less forthcoming about embracing the ways of the forest and Jed's survivalist techniques. It is important that Robert wears a Star Wars cap because it not only suggests that he is fan of the sci-fi saga but also is a veiled reference to the Reagan administration's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which was nicknamed "Star Wars" by a journalist. SDI was a space-based program developed as a shield to ward off ballistic missiles or a preemptive Soviet attack. It was implemented as a scare tactic to force the Soviets to exhaust their resources and shrink their economy as part of the massive nuclear arms buildup. It's also significant in the film because the Wolverines discover their own SDI inside Anderson's Sporting Goods Store, which contains a gun cabinet and boxes of ammo. Joining the male teens in their fight against the communists are the granddaughters of Mr. Mason (Ben Johnson) and Mrs. Mason (Lois Kimbrell), Erica (Lea Thompson) and Toni (Jennifer Grey). Milius comes close to re-ascribing war genre tropes belonging to female victims in WWII and Vietnam films. However, instead of being sexually exploited or turned into rape victims, Erica and Toni quickly learn how to defend themselves and fight back with guns.

The Wolverines scout the communists' activities.

Red Dawn is also a film about the father/son dynamic in American society during the eighties. Jed and Matt cling to the hard-nosed conservative values that their father, Mr. Eckert (Harry Dean Stanton), has passed down to them. There is a poignant scene in the reeducation center/concentration camp where the Eckert brothers find their dad in captivity. Bloody with not much time left, Mr. Eckert pleads with his boys not to cry and to avenge his impending demise. He wants them to take up the stockpile of arms and defeat the communists using the survival methods that he taught them. When Robert learns about the fate of his father, he is understandably deeply saddened but grows from a boy to a man after transforming into a mercenary equipped with Green Beret regalia. On the other hand, the liberal Mayor Bates (Lane Smith) is portrayed as a weak and crippled politician, emasculated with no reserves in preventing the communists from conquering his town. His complicity in the Soviets' plan is shared by his son, the pusillanimous Daryl (Darren Dalton), who the Wolverines had once regarded as their comrade.

Red Dawn is well-made and features several powerful scenes. It remains controversial to this day in large measure to Milius's hawkish politics that show up on the screen. However, as they defend their homeland, the Wolverines come to realize the futility of war as casualties mount on both sides. Red Dawn doesn't turn from a pro-war film into an antiwar film, nor does it evolve into a conversion narrative. (The surviving Americans don't all of a sudden become pacifists.) Some jingoism lingers and not all is forgiven of the invaders. Milius and co-writer Kevin Reynolds deliver a dichotomous narrative with mixed messages. I agree with cultural commentator Harvey R. Greenberg who has observed that the film sees war as hell, as Milius and Reynolds's script asserts, "but [Milius's] young men (and women) have one hell of a good time waging it." The film's most glaring weakness, particularly in retrospect, is that it is one-sided on the Latin American issue. A title in the prologue states that Cuba and Nicaragua have amassed 500,000 troops. Milius deserves some credit for creating sympathy for Cuban Colonel Bella but there's also a Nicaraguan captain (Judd Omen) and other Latinos (read: the Sandinistas) who are depicted as the encroaching bad guys. I can see why Red Dawn was considered propagandistic and dangerous when it played in U.S. cinemas. It reinforced the notion from Reagan's public speeches that if Central America is not contained, America will have a Cuba on the mainland. Beginning in the early eighties, the CIA sanctioned several covert wars across Latin America using the contras from Honduras and Nicaragua as military force. One of the very few U.S. made films during the '80s to explicitly grapple with the contras and American interventionist politics is Haskell Wexler's Latino (1985). In spite of this oversight and some one-dimensional portrayals, Red Dawn is a solid Cold War action thriller.

Red Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Red Dawn arrives on US Blu-ray courtesy of Shout Select. It is marked #13 in the label's catalog. This is the second Blu-ray release of Red Dawn following MGM's BD in 2012. The review copy I received touts this Collector's Edition as "THE DEFINITIVE HIGH-DEFINITION RELEASE OF THE ACTION-PACKED WWIII FILM." The image quality, however, tells a different story. Indeed, this is struck from a dated master. I also own the MGM edition that my colleague Martin Liebman reviewed over five years ago and can attest that this transfer by Shout derives from the same print. Compression is superior on the MGM as the Shout carries an average bitrate of 27998 kbps for the main feature compared to MGM's 32696 kbps. Shout's total video bitrate for the movie also lags behind MGM: 33.58 mbps compared to 41.70 mbps. Shout has the same Diamond Jubilee MGM logo preceding the feature's start. There is a panoply of white speckles and other marks that grace the screen in the first reel. (See Screenshot #18 of the desolate township.) Debris crops up periodically throughout the remainder of the film, although with less frequency. Reel changes and transitional shots contain the most blemishes. Shout could have removed these even if it didn't perform a full-blown restoration. On the plus side, there is a pretty coarse grain structure that remains. (One of the positive virtues of the MGM BDs is their utter lack of DNR.) Faces shown in broad daylight show a good amount of detail. Still, there are a number of shots in the film that I thought could use color correction (e.g., capture #20). The movie needs a new scan and a remastering job.

Red Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout Select advances past MGM in the audio department. Shout deploys a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround (2024 kbps) and the original DTS-HD Master Audio Stereo (1590 kbps), which is actually spread across four channels. MGM only contained a 5.1 remix, carrying an average bitrate encoding of 1578 kbps. The late composer Basil Poledouris's brassy theme for the Wolverines shows nice directionality and range during the main titles. Other cues from the score also sounded good here. Sound effects deriving from RPG firearms, gun turrets, grenades, and general zingers create separation on the surround channels. English-spoken dialogue is pretty clear. Russian and Spanish dialogue contain compulsory English subs ingrained in the print.

Shout supplies optional English SDH for the main feature.

Red Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Red Dawn recycles the four featurettes and trailer found on the MGM BD. You can read Mary's summaries of them here. Unfortunately, Shout has dropped the optional English SDH and German subtitles that were provided on MGM's supplements. The lone bonus addition here is a new retrospective documentary:

• NEW "A Look Back at Red Dawn" – A 70 Minute Feature Including Brand-New Stories from Co-Star Doug Toby, Casting Director Jane Jenkins, Production Designer Jackson DeGovia, and Editor Thom Noble (1080p, 69:09): Toby, Jenkins, DeGovia, and Noble offer their thoughts and reflections about Red Dawn's cast and crew members who aren't interviewed here. Essentially, the participants try to fill in the gaps for those unavailable. In English, not subtitled.

• Red Dawn Rising (480p, 23:00).

• Building the Red Menace (480p, 9:36).

• Training for WWIII (480p, 9:49).

• WWIII Comes to Town (480p, 13:26).

• Red Dawn Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:16).

Red Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I would not call this release of Red Dawn "definitive." If you don't own the MGM Blu-ray, I would advise you to pick up this Shout Select BD at a reasonable price. However, if you've got MGM's but want sixty-odd minutes worth of new interviews, then I would wait until the disc drops below $15 or less. The movie certainly needs a new 2K scan (at minimum) and cleanup of dirt and debris on this print. RECOMMENDED with qualifiers.