If ever a film has been ripe for rediscovery and reevaluation, it is Red Dawn, John Milius’s 1984 movie about a group of Colorado children who become guerilla resistance fighters during a Soviet–Cuban invasion of mainland America. Received and remembered as a bit of fun, schlocky action, it has become a cult classic mainly as a novelty of the Cold War and its silly obsessions that remind us how far away we have quickly come from worries over ducking and covering and the Russians. That is unfair to the film and just inaccurate. In truth, Red Dawn was the best war movie made in the 1980s, a thoughtful meditation on the tragic impact of military invasions and why they usually fail. It is also an examination of the mindset of the warriors on both sides who fight in them and the grim things war does to them, both physically and mentally.

The film was a moderate box office hit at the time of its release but was derided by critics. It was released at the height of President Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” popularity. Reagan had declared the USSR an “evil empire” and presided over a military buildup to win the Cold War. Liberals denounced it as warmongering, but voters approved. Reagan’s won 49 out of 50 states in his 1984 reelection bid, one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history.