Tags

, , ,

Now, this is easier for me because I’m used to it. The rest of you are gonna have a tougher choice. Look, I don’t want to sell it to you; it’s too ugly for that. It’s ugly, and it’s hard.

Red Dawn is a classic movie, but in its own special way. It wasn’t exactly low budget, but sometimes it felt like it. It was sappy and a bit silly; and just enough so that its images and catchphrases could infuse our culture for decades to come. It was good, old-fashioned nationalist propaganda from a time when such a thing was entirely out of style. I’ve watched it, now, a whole bunch of times and each time I feel a little bit guilty about doing so.

Thus, the project to do a remake for 2012 seemed like a fine idea. Sharpen up the production values and sew up a plot hole here and there and, ta-da, the studio could really have something. Or not.

My first indication that something was about to go majorly wrong came well before the film’s release. Work on the film was moving slowly, due in no small part to the MGM Studio’s bankruptcy filing. Reportedly, despite much of the filming having been completed over the previous year, the film’s release did not seem to be on the horizon. Against this backdrop, a draft of the script was released by website The Awl, a now-defunct New York City based project with motto “be less stupid.” The remake’s plot would dramatize a Chinese, rather than Soviet, invasion of the American mainland. Their motivation would be their desire make to good on the repayment of the U.S. National Debt. Crazy plot? Maybe, but no more so than the original.

Unfortunately, the government of (communist) China did not find it so amusing. The studio was informed that, should they release a movie wherein the Chinese are the evildoers, they can kiss any mainland China box office receipts (and DVD sales, for that matter) goodbye. For executives already facing financial disaster, it must have felt prudent not to cut off an entire (really, really large) nation of potential revenue. So instead of an invasion by a nation that might* be large enough to actually do so, we substitute for our chief villain the tiny, dysfunctional state of North Korea.

I knew right then I was not going to like this movie. I also suspected that I would nonetheless still watch it.

Such suspicions were further put to the test as trailers for the movie came out. In the original, our heroes (brothers Jed and Matt Eckhert) were young men raised right by a tough-but-loving (single parent) father. When the balloon went up, these home-grown values – these traditional** American values – allowed a band of high school kids to not only survive alone in the mountains but strike back against the communist menace. In the new version, however, things had changed. Dad is not a struggling, blue-collar worker but a city police sergeant. Jed Eckhert’s skill set comes, not from his family’s upbringing, but courtesy of Uncle Sam – Jed is a multi-tour veteran in America’s War on Terror.

Part of me wants to admit that the changes are appropriate in light of how our society has evolved over the ensuing three decades. We are awash with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq who have learned through experience how asymmetric, insurgent wars are fought. Surely if any resistance were to arise on our own soil, it would be these veterans to whom we would look*** for leadership. Isn’t the acknowledgement of this part of helping the film make sense to today’s audience?

Maybe, maybe not.

The change in focus gives up much of what the original Red Dawn was about.

Anyway, the movie came and went from the theaters and then became available as a DVD rental. I knew all along that when it eventually was available on streaming, I would probably have to watch it, if for no other reason than to judge it for myself. After all, it doesn’t make sense to form a full opinion on a movie based entirely on the trailer. At least, most of the time it does not.

Now that I’ve watched it I can confidently report that, yes, the film is a disappointment. What it provides in terms of slick production and pretty girls is overshadowed by its mountain of weaknesses. In addition to all that which I had anticipated, the “action” just doesn’t make that much sense. That is to say, the writers made little effort to put thought behind all the running and gunning within a larger and meaningful picture. Most of the action scenes were typical, Hollywood boilerplate and the downtime between actions was just insipid. To put it another way – the action is the movie and everything else is just there as window dressing.

The high point of the remade Red Dawn (if there can be such a thing) are its nods to the original. One of the best, and one I read about in early reviews, is the remaking of the original’s deer hunting scene. Even in this amusing little joke, though, the weakness of this production shines through. Overwrought or not, the original Red Dawn demonstrated how boys raised to feed themselves from and live with nature are going to be formidable mountain guerrilla fighters, even if they’ve never seen a day of military training. In the remake, the pointlessness and disconnectedness of the hunting excursion all make my larger points about this film.

Let’s also consider another remade scene, the one when the “wolverines” first begin planning and executing their attacks (see the first half of the above clip). What first appears to be the actions of one, scared girl who sets off a grenade in a tank (with indefensible help from some thieving, lecherous Russians) turns into a well-prepared trap meticulously laid-in by the group. Because it is a surprise to the audience as well as to the Russian tankers, the details of the extensive preparation are brushed aside. How long would it take to dig trap-door firing pits in the open Colorado plains (convincingly played by New Mexico in the film)? Is it possible that this could have taken place a hundred yards or so from a strategic asset (a gas station that is still getting gas deliveries) without being observed? Do we even care?

What if, though, that ambush has to be set in the middle of a medium-sized city (Spokane, played haphazardly by Detroit, Michigan) a hundred-or-so yards from a military checkpoint? How long would it take to dig into a derelict urban lot? How would that be done by a group of known, wanted fugitives under the very noses of the city’s occupiers? Is there even enough depth here to justify the bother to think about such details? Doubtful.

I could go on and on. Surely there are reviews out there that pick Red Dawn (2012) apart scene-by-scene. That level of effort is far more than this failed remake deserves. Yet, this gets at the heart of what probably is its key failure. If this weren’t a remake, if this weren’t Red Dawn… if this was just another action film where stoic men and pretty girls shoot up a lot of politically-acceptable bad guys, it wouldn’t have been hateful. It still wouldn’t be good, but it could have blended in well with all sorts of similar offerings (see this). What kills this one is the very fact that it is a remake and that it misses the mark so wide in doing the original justice.

Well, that’s not entirely true, is it? Before this film came along, the original Red Dawn was obviously pretty goofy, entirely unrealistic, and a bit of a guilty pleasure. Now, it looks positively brilliant in comparison with the 2012 version.

*I don’t actually believe that China currently has the military capability to mount a cross-Pacific invasion into the mainland United States. However, a scenario having them do so is about as plausible as having the Soviet Union do the same in 1986 or so. I’ve read that John Milius based his script on some planning that the Germans had done for a U.S. attack during World War II. They couldn’t have pulled it off either.

**Part of what I like about the original Red Dawn is that it is pure, patriotic propaganda when such was anathema in American culture. One could debate how much the Eckhert family truly represents America of any era, current or historic. For what I’m suggesting it is besides the point. Within the internal logic of Red Dawn, they are the definition of American values.

***I was so sure that I already wrote about this before but I can’t locate anything within my blog. Maybe I’m repeating myself. I certainly almost wrote the following as its own article, even if I never did it. I want to express the fusion of two similar, but not quite overlapping, thoughts. First, looking at any revolution over the past century or two you’d find that any successful (or at least having a chance to be successful) uprising had the backing of major, systemic powers. Secondly, in terms of the potential of conflict here at home, I imagine there are three pillars of violent force in our society; police, military, and war veterans. If all three are aligned, there aren’t enough folks on the other side to put up an actual fight. If two of these turn against the third, all bets are off.