'Red Dawn' Proves U.S. Should Cut Defense

Like the vast majority Americans, you may have missed the release last month of Red Dawn, a remake of the 1984 film of the same name in which a bunch of teenagers led by Patrick Swayze fought off an invading Soviet army in Colorado. The new version stars a collection of C-list actors and cost $65 million to produce; so far it has made less than one-third of that back at the box office. Only 11 percent of people who’ve seen the movie gave it a favorable review on the review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes—compared with 53 percent for the original and 92 percent for the latest outing of that other Cold War holdover, James Bond.

Despite its less-than-blockbuster performance, Red Dawn turns out to be surprisingly trenchant —though probably not in the way the film’s creators intended.