Filmmaker John Milius has had a storied career, having contributed to the screenplays of such landmarks as Apocalypse Now and Jaws. He’s also the one who came up with the immortal “Make my day” line from the seminal vigilante film Dirty Harry.

Thus it’s not so surprising that Milius would be behind Red Dawn (1984), out this week on DVD, the cautionary tale about letting down our guard and allowing communists to invade. I may be a diehard lefty, but if I think a movie’s good, I don’t really give a rat’s ass about the filmmaker’s politics. There are plenty of good fascist films, among them Triumph of the Will and the Dirty Harry movies.

But Red Dawn isn’t any good. Along with the TV mini-series Amerika (1987), this film imagined what things would have looked like if the Soviets had actually invaded and taken over. As it turns out, a group of plucky football-playing and cheerleading adolescents—among them Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen—band together and form pockets of armed resistance. In other words, they become insurgents. Not only is this film laughably idiotic, but Swayze et al. are so dreary, you actually find yourself rooting for the invaders. These youngsters look a lot like some of the people I went to high school with back in Alberta, so naturally I kept hoping that one of the nasty commies would plant some lead in them, right between the eyes. Sadly, Swayze and Grey would survive this film, making Dirty Dancing a few years later, another culture crime of Nuremberg proportions.

by MATTHEW HAYS