Red Dawn is a 1984 American alternate history action drama film directed by John Milius, from a screenplay co-written with Kevin Reynolds, and starring Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey, with supporting roles played by Ben Johnson, Darren Dalton, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, William Smith and Powers Boothe. Set during a fictional World War III between an increasingly isolated United States and the Soviet Union, the film follows a group of teenage guerrillas, known as the Wolverines, fighting against a joint Soviet-Latin American invasion force in Colorado.
Despite mixed reviews from critics, the film became a commercial success, grossing $38 million against a budget of $17 million. It was the first film to be released in the United States with a PG-13 rating under the modified rating system introduced on July 1, 1984. A remake was released in 2012.
Plot In the 1980s, the United States has become increasingly isolated after NATO is dissolved and Western Europe's nuclear weapons are removed. The Soviet Union is devastated by a failed wheat harvest and is forced to use military intervention in Poland to suppress food and labor riots. Soviet allies Cuba and Nicaragua build up their military strength, while expanding their influence across El Salvador and Honduras. Along with this, a Soviet-allied government is established in Mexico following a coup d'état.
High school students in Calumet, Colorado, witness a surprise Soviet-led invasion of their town. Brothers Jed and Matt Eckert escape the chaos of a Soviet paratroop attack. When Soviet, Cuban, and Nicaraguan soldiers occupy Calumet, Jed, Matt, and their friends Robert, Danny, Daryl, and Arturo flee into the countryside with camping supplies, food, and weapons taken from Robert's father's store. They evade a Soviet roadblock assisted by a U.S. helicopter gunship, and narrowly escape into the mountains where they go into hiding.
Weeks later when their supplies run low, the group agrees to go into town to find out what’s going on. While Danny, Daryl and Arturo remain at their camp, Jed, Matt and Robert return to Calumet where they discover they’re wanted by the KGB and that Mr. Eckert is being held at a re-education camp at Calumet's drive-in. They surreptitiously visit him and learn that Mrs. Eckert is dead. He asks his sons to avenge him.
Visiting the Mason family in occupied territory, they learn that Robert's father has been executed and they are forty miles away from the nearest safe zone. The Masons ask Jed and Matt to care for their granddaughters, Toni and Erica, as the group retreats back to their camp. The group is eventually discovered in their forest hideout by a small group of Soviets, whom they kill in self-defense. The group begins launching guerilla attacks on the occupation forces, calling themselves the "Wolverines" after their high school mascot. The occupiers respond with brutal crackdowns, such as executing large groups of civilians by firing squad which include Mr. Eckert and Arturo's father.
The Wolverines encounter crashed USAF pilot Andrew Tanner who informs them of the current state of the war: several American cities, including Washington, D.C., Omaha, Nebraska and Kansas City, Missouri were destroyed by nuclear strikes, Strategic Air Command was crippled by Cuban saboteurs, and paratroopers seized key positions in preparation for full-scale invasion via Mexico and Alaska. Denver has been under heavy siege the last three months. Most of the southwestern United States and northwestern Canada are occupied, but American counterattacks halted their advance between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. Western Europe has chosen to remain neutral, and America's only remaining foreign allies, China and the United Kingdom, actively resist the Soviets but are militarily crippled.
After witnessing the Wolverines take down a Russian armored column, Tanner joins them in leading a raid to free political prisoners. While visiting the Mason’s, Jed learns that stories of the Wolverines success has reached the US controlled territory and that the US military plans to send Green Berets to assist them around Spring time. The Wolverines later visit the frontline where Tanner plans to return to back to friendly territory but are ambushed by Russian tanks. Tanner and Arturo are killed in the ensuing battle.
Soviet Spetsnaz commander Colonel Strelnikov arrives to track down the Wolverines and orders the retaliatory killings of American civilians to stop. The spoiled Daryl defies Jed's orders and warnings, venturing into town to rescue his father on his own and is arrested by the KGB when his brainwashed father betrays him. Daryl is forced to swallow a tracking device and released to rejoin the Wolverines. Soviet troops track the group but are ambushed by the Wolverines, who capture one of the Soviets alive. After questioning the Soviet leads nowhere, Matt gets the tracker to work, which points to Daryl. The group assembles to execute Daryl and the Soviet, arguing about whether what they are about to do is right, but Jed shoots the Soviet. Daryl pleads for mercy, but is killed by a furious Robert.
The remaining Wolverines are ambushed by Soviet helicopter gunships, which kill Toni and Robert. Jed and Matt attack the occupation forces in Calumet as a distraction to help Danny and Erica escape. Strelnikov mortally wounds Jed and Matt before Jed kills him with his grandfather's pistol. Although the brothers are discovered and held at gunpoint by Cuban Colonel Ernesto Bella, he lets them escape in a moment of disillusionment about the war. The dying brothers sit together in a playground during their final moments. Danny and Erica trek through the mountains and reach American-held territory.
The film closes with a shot of a plaque on a mountainside, fenced off, with a U.S. flag flying nearby. The plaque identifies the location as Partisan Rock, and reads the following: In the early days of World War III, guerrillas, mostly children, placed the names of their lost upon this rock. They fought here alone and gave up their lives, so that this nation shall not perish from the earth.
Cast
Production Ten Soldiers Originally called Ten Soldiers, the script was written by Kevin Reynolds.Bart p 109–110 Producer Barry Beckerman read it, and, in the words of Peter Bart, "thought it had the potential to become a tough, taut, 'art' picture made on a modest budget that could possibly break out to find a wider audience."Bart p 110 His father Sidney Beckerman helped him pay a $5,000 option. Reynolds wanted to direct but the Beckermans wanted someone more established. Walter Hill briefly considered the script before turning it down, as did several other directors.
The Beckermans pitched the project to David Begelman at MGM, but were turned down. They tried again at that studio when it was run by Frank Yablans. Senior vice-president for production Peter Bart, who remembers it as a "sharply written anti-war movie ... a sort of Lord of the Flies", took the project to Yablans.
The script's chances increased when Reynolds became mentored by Steven Spielberg, who helped him make Fandango; the script was eventually purchased by MGM.
John Milius
Bart recalls that things changed when "the chieftains at MGM got a better idea. Instead of making a poignant little antiwar movie, why not make a teen Rambo and turn the project over to John Milius, a genial filmmaker who loved war movies. The idea was especially popular with a member of the MGM board of directors, General Alexander Haig, the former Nixon chief of staff, who yearned to supervise the film personally and develop a movie career."
Bart says most of MGM's executives, except for Yablans, were opposed to Milius directing. Bart claims he made a last minute attempt to get Reynolds to direct the film and went to see Spielberg. However, by this stage, Fandango was in rough cut, and Bart sensed that Spielberg was disappointed in the film and would not speak up for Reynolds.Bart p. 111 Milius was signed to direct at a fee of $1.25 million, plus a gun of his choice.Bart p. 112
Milius set about rewriting the script. He and Haig devised a backstory in which the circumstances of the invasion would occur; this was reportedly based on Hitler's proposed plans to invade the U.S. during World War II.Bart pp. 112f Haig took Milius under his wing, bringing him to the Hudson Institute, the conservative think tank founded by Herman Kahn, to develop a plausible scenario. Milius saw the story as a Third World liberation struggle in reverse; Haig introduced Nicaragua and suggested that, with the collapse of NATO, a left-wing Mexican government would participate in the Soviet invasion, effectively splitting the U.S. in half. Bart says, "Even Milius was taken aback by Haig's approach to the project. 'This is going to end up as a jingoistic, flag-waving movie,' Milius fretted. As a result, the budget of this once $6 million movie almost tripled."
Other changes included a shift in focus from conflict within the group to conflict between the teens and their oppressors, and the acceleration of the ages of some of the characters from early teens to high school age and beyond. There was also the addition of a sequence where some children visit a camp to find their parents have been brainwashed.Bart p. 113
Milius later said: "I see this as an anti-war movie in the sense that if both sides could see this, maybe it wouldn't have to happen. I think it would be good for Americans to see what a war would be like. The film isn't even that violent – the war shows none of the horrors that could happen in World War III. In fact, everything that happened in the movie happened in World War II."
Bart says Yablans pushed through filming faster than Milius wanted because MGM needed a movie over the summer. Milius wanted more time to plan, including devising futuristic weaponry and to not shoot over winter, but had to accede.Bart p. 114
The Department of Defense had originally agreed to provide assistance to the production on the basis the film "would have a positive impact and benefit to the military services and in the [national] interest", although the Air Force objected to the language used by one of the pilot characters. However, Milius ultimately decided not to cooperate with the department after deciding doing so would be too expensive.
Casting Milius wanted Robert Blake to play the American pilot, but was overruled by Frank Yablans. Powers Boothe was selected instead.Bart p 135
Filming The movie was filmed in and around the city of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Many of the buildings and structures which appear in the film, including a historic Fred Harvey Company hotel adjacent to the train depot, the train yard, and a building near downtown, which was repainted with the name of "Calumet, Colorado", referencing the town in Michigan, are still there today. An old Safeway grocery store was converted to a sound stage and used for several scenes in the movie.
Powers Boothe later claimed that "Milius cut out the emotional life of its characters. Originally, my character was anti-war, as well as a rightist. I was supposed to be the voice of reason in that movie. But certain cuts negated my character."