'Red Dawn'
by Robert A. George

I have always considered Red Dawn to be an unfairly underrated film.  The premise of this Kevin Reynolds story, the invasion of the United States by a foreign army, is most intriguing with some chilling parallels to actual guerrilla warfare in any number of other third world countries.  Director John Milius paints an unflinching portrait of what it might be like for a small cadre of teenage freedom fighters who are wrenched from their average midwestern lives by an overwhelming invader.  Perhaps equally interesting some fourteen years after the film's original release is the then mostly unknown cast.  Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey are joined by veterans Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, William Smith, and Powers Boothe to round out the solid cast.

Although this new DVD edition of Red Dawn appears to have been sourced from the same video master used for the previous letterboxed laserdisc edition, the DVD format does offer some noticeable improvements.  While the previous laserdisc edition was quite sharp, the disc was also plagued by a pervasive graininess that is greatly reduced, but not completely eliminated, on this DVD.  The image retains the excellent sharpness with added detail and a much smoother look.  Colors are very strong with excellent saturation.  The letterboxed version of the film is framed at about 1.85:1 with a better compositional balance that the full-screen version MGM included on the second side.

Unfortunately, the film's soundtrack has not been improved over the previous edition.  The 2-channel Dolby Surround audio suffers from some compression of the dynamic range and frequency response is somewhat limited with rolled-off highs and very little low bass.  Dialog is generally clear, however, and I did not detect an objectionable level of distortion.  The surround mix is fairly active with good separations across the front soundstage.  The surround channel is relatively quiet, providing little more than ambience (Dolby Digital 5.1 has completely spoiled me).

Red Dawn runs 114 minutes and the disc contains 31 chapters with direct scene access from the main menu.  MGM has also included a theatrical trailer.  List price is $24.95.

© Robert A. George 1998.

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