Red Dawn (1984)

Starring: Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, William Smith, Powers Boothe

Director: John Milius

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, War

Rating: C

This is not a good movie.  I'm just going to stick that out there: Red Dawn is not good.  At best it's a very conservative, rather violent movie about a situation that is really hard to buy into.  When the premise of your movie is that the United States is caught unaware by a Soviet invasion and the only people who fight back (at least for a good chunk of it) are a group of teenagers in Colorado, I kind of have a hard time buying into it.

So, yeah.  At some point in the 1980s the USA becomes increasingly isolated when several European nations, all of them except for the UK, withdraw from NATO, at a time when the Warsaw Pact is being aggressively expanded.  In addition to this, there's a wheat harvest failure in the Ukraine and a communist coup in Mexico.  In order to cope, the Soviets and Cubans invade the United States.  Specifically, they invade the small town of Calumet, Colorado and quickly completely take over the town - and many other parts of the USA.  Enter our heroes, a small group of teenagers lead by Jed and Matt Eckert (Swayze and Sheen), who manage to escape the occupation and begin to form a resistance.

Okay, so 1. I do not buy that a group of teenagers who have no military experience and really are just kids who grew up hunting would be able to effectively fight the KGB.  2. I do not buy that the Soviets would be able to invade Colorado without being noticed well before getting to Colorado.  3. NATO consists of more than just the USA and European countries.  4. By the time of the movie, the Cold War was kind of dying down and it was beginning to be pretty clear that the Soviets? Weren't going to win it.

Actually, let's go back to number 2 here.  There are a few ways that the Soviets/Communists could have invaded the USA based on the premise of this movie.  They could have come up through Mexico, in which case they would have hit California, Arizona, Texas, etc, first.  They could have come via the Pacific, in which case they would have hit Alaska, Canada, and Washington state first.  They could have come up through Cuba, in which they would have probably hit Florida first. Finally, they could have flown over the Arctic Sea, in which case thy would have hit Canada first.  There is no way that they randomly hit fucking Colorado first - which thus brings to question just how the hell this was a surprise attack.  Dear movie makers: please consider geography.

This overall problem comes into play with issue number 3 here.  Canada is a part of NATO. Canada has always been a part of NATO.  In the premise of this movie, Canada is still a part of NATO.  In all likelyhood, Canada also had to be invaded in order to get to the USA here.  Thus, two nations would have been invaded.  Furthermore, the whole "the UK is still a part of NATO" thing comes into play.  Even without NATO, Canada has a very delicate relationship with the UK and it's a bit hard to buy that the UK does nothing to come to the aid of two allies, both which they're entered into military alliances with and one which is a part of the Commonwealth.  Just saying.

Then there's the whole issue of 1.  I'm not even sure I want to go there.  Yes, Americans are known for their gun loving ways - yes, it's somewhat of a stereotype.  Yes, Guerrilla warfare can completely screw over traditional armies, and in a lot of ways that's what the Communists are here.  No, a handful of teenagers are not going to successfully fight the KGB for long, nor are they going to be the only resistance.  That's just ridiculous, sorry.

Brothers (2009)

Stars: Toby Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham
Director: Jim Sheridan
Genre: Drama, Thriller, War
Rating: B

Brothers is a 2009 American remake of a 2004 Danish film, thus continuing a well established tradition of Americans taking the movies of other countries and trying to make them flashier.  I haven’t actually seen Brødre, the original film, but I can only assume that it is less flashy, if for no other reason than because it a) doesn’t have the all star cast and b) isn’t an American film.

Sam (Maguire) is an all-American man; with Grace (Portman), his wife, his two daughters, and his honourable career as Marine captain about to embark on his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan.  His brother, Tommy (Gyllenhaal) is a complete screw up who just got out of jail for armed robbery.  In Afghanistan Sam’s helicopter goes down and he’s taken hostage by… well, I’m not really sure who exactly took him hostage, beyond them being really angry Afghanis with guns.  Sam must struggle to survive and get home to his family, who in turn have been told that he’s dead.  At home his family must come to terms with his death.  His parents (Shepard and Winningham) have lost their golden boy, his wife her husband, his children their father, and his brother the only family he really had.  With the death, Tommy really begins to turn a new leaf and forces his way back into the lives of his family, initially by enlisting help to redo Grace’s kitchen.  In the end, of course, Sam returns to his home and they all must deal with the consequences, both of the newfound friendship between Tommy and Grace and those of the hardships that Sam has gone through.

The more interesting aspect of this plot is the struggle that Tommy, Grace, and co have in dealing with Sam’s ‘death.’  Sam’s capture by hostile people and subsequent torture is something that I kind of felt has been seen in a lot of movies already and the family reunion looked like a grittier take of Pearl Harbour – copying plot points from a Michael Bay film is never a good thing.  The way that Tommy and Grace dealt with Sam’s death (the brief semi-romantic moment aside) is beautifully done, and I would have really liked it if the film focused more on that than the other elements of the plot.  The one other problem that I had was with the casting.  They were all amazing, and I have to say that I especially loved Bailee Madison and Taylor Greare as Sam and Grace’s children.  You know something has been done right when the child actors stand out.  I did struggle at first with seeing Maguire as a Marine, although in the end he really won me over.  I also struggled with seeing Gyllenhaal as a man who committed armed robbery.  He did a great job of conveying a drug addict, but I kind of felt like they gave him that attribute and an ugly neck tattoo in order to just pass him off as a hardened criminal.  That aspect of his character really wasn’t necessary; they could have easily just had him be an addict fresh out of jail and not added the armed robbery – that or actually developed into that aspect of his character a bit more.