The Film (3/5)

    Red Dawn is one of the most quintessential of 80's action films. Not because the action is particularly well handled, but because the premise is so built into the 1980's Cold War fears, and the once and now relevant conflict with Russia that makes up the film’s central plot. Red Dawn opens with a Colorado high school class being taught, when from out of nowhere Russia paratroopers land outside in the school parking lot. They take no time in establishing themselves as the enemy, and begin to shoot up the school, both teachers, and students. A group of students lead by Patrick Swayze's Jed escape to get supplies from one of their concerned parents who happens to own a plot device refilling station (I mean a camping supply store). The gang ends up in the mountains outside of their town, and decides to try and survive there. They also sneak back into town, and collect other survivors, and begin to form an army called the "Wolverines" who attempt to rebel against the Russian invaders.

    Red Dawn I feel is a film I would feel would play better to an audience that had grown up with it, and while I was born in the 80's and grew up with many of its movies, this one had totally and utterly evaded me. So watching it now for the first time I couldn't help, but watch it as a myth for Reagan's America.  The film depicted a small band of patriots taking on those evil Russians at all cost, depicting them at almost zero dimensional characters. Hell, even Rocky IV gave Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago somewhat of a personality. The teens do have conflicts about what to do, and whether or not they should even be involved, but these are not solved with anything, but a gunshot.

   I will admit the film had some thrilling moments, and the opening in the school parking lot was a great attention-getter to start a film with. Also, the cast is a who's who of 80's great, just before they were about to break. The film has both Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey 3 years prior to breaking out as superstars in Dirty Dancing (A film I loathe, but I do recognize its status). So performances across the board are pretty solid, though more than a few carry the heavy-handed tone of the material, but that cannot be helped. John Milius (Conan the Barbarian)provides solid direction that keeps the film evenly paced, and helps keep a mostly natural look to the film.

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

    Shout! Factory presents Red Dawn in a solid 1:85:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. The Blu-ray looks quite decent, but the film is a sort of rough looking film with much of it shot outdoors, and is quite a bit soft to begin with and the transfer reflects that. Colors are mostly stable, blacks are decent, and details is fine.  There is some minor instances of damage from the source, and some softness as previously mentioned, but overall things looks fine here.

    The audio is presented via 2 tracks a DTS-HD 2.0 and 5.1 both tracks handle the job quite well with dialogue, score, and ambient effects coming through nicely.

Extras (3.5/5)

   Shout Factory creates a new hour long documentary called a Look Back at Red Dawn and interviews some members of the crew of the film and creates a quite intersting pieces that looks at the film from a different perspective. We also get a bunch of archival documentaries from prior releases, and a trailer.

Overall

    Red Dawn is considered a classic of 80's action cinema. Unfortunately, I think this is a case of "you had to be there", to really get into it. The Blu-ray looks and sounds quite decent, and has a decent slate of extras. If you were there, this Blu-ray comes RECOMMENDED.