Were you to think along these lines, you’d be totally right – this is an unmitigated folly. Aussie Chris Hemsworth – in a pre-Thor/Avengers role – takes the lead as Jed Eckert, a soldier returning home after a tour on the front line in Afghanistan.
He’s rectifying relations with his younger brother when a load of North Koreans invade, dropping out of the sky, shouting in ‘foreign’ and machine-gunning anyone who stands in their way.It’s a daft premise.
The installation of North Koreans for Russians does little to give it a contemporary narrative (and this was only changed late in the day from Chinese to appease that market, allegedly).
How in this post-9/11 day and age would an invading army swan into the States and parachute en masse into its most nationalistic homelands without anyone noticing or retaliating?
Director Dan Bradley makes the leap up from stunt co-ordinator with this, his debut, but even the action is humdrum and routine as Hemsworth leads a band of teens and youths, including Isabel Lucas and Josh Hutcherson, to fight back, as they morph (seemingly overnight) from terrified kids into guerilla warriors.
Filmed back in 2009, Red Dawn’s been stuck on the shelf due to studio MGM’s financial difficulties.
There’s little here to argue for its release at all. Sorry Hems.
Good for: A throwaway Sunday afternoon DVD, perhaps, but not a big screen excursion.
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Isabel Lucas, Josh Hutcherson | 12A | 93mins
