The original Red Dawn doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves.

It’s often described as just being an anti-communist film but actually, it’s a lot more complex than that.  Yes, it’s about a group of teenagers who wage guerilla warfare against communist invaders.  But it’s also about how those teenagers lose their innocence as a result and how they all come to realize that war is not as simple as they thought it was.  The movie celebrates the Wolverines while also mourning that they were put in the position to have to risk and sacrifice their lives in the first place.

That’s what today’s scene that I love is all about.  After they are tracked down and attacked by a group of Russian soldiers, the Wolverines discover that one of the original members of the group visited his father in town and was forced to swallow a tracking device.  In this scene, the group is forced to deal with the reality of war.  The fact that the traitor was a friend to all of them and popular enough to be president of his class just adds to the difficulty of emotionally processing with his betrayal.  Patrick Swayze can’t bring himself to pull the trigger.  C. Thomas Howell, on the other hand, is so quick to shoot his former friend that you realize just how consumed by hate he has become.

Today’s scene was directed by the brilliant John Milius.