Entertainment Binge

By Isaac White.

In this week’s installment I’ll be delving into a British series that I think deserves some attention. As I had done in last week’s binge, I wanted to talk about an older film that happened to be very near its opening credits so I decided to watch it for a while. Then I watched it all the way through.

Red Dawn and I mean the old-school 80s version, not the trash remake, is a great action movie, perfectly encapsulating the 80s as I remember them when I was a small child. Well, I don’t think I was ever truly small, but I digress. The yells of “Wolverines” are something that I think anyone who appreciates the original film will smile when they hear it. At least I hope they don’t think of the remake.

To be fair though, I never watched the entirety of the Red Dawn remake. I just couldn’t get through it, there was far too much disappointment in what they turned out for me to watch the whole thing. But anyway, I’m talking about the original.

When you see the initial invasion, those guys dropping from the air with parachutes and immediately going to work on taking over the Colorado town, it’s filled with tension and action. This being an 80s action film, there are no CGI extravaganzas, this is just old-school. Things are being blown up, there’s smoke all over the place, in general it almost seems more realistic than the modern movies which HAVE all those features.

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy modern action movies. In fact I think I like them more than the old ones in general, precisely because the action can be more over the top. But there is something to be said for some of the classics that don’t have the fancy special effects and such. Some of it is nostalgia but that matters not to me.

Red Dawn works on so many levels. Camaraderie, loyalty, bravery, friendship, love, it’s all in there. I know there is a patriotic aspect in there too and that appeals to many I’m sure. One of my favorite scenes, and this is something you see a lot in 80s action movies, is when the kids in the truck, Patrick Swayze driving, arrive at one of their father’s stores. They do the requisite supply load and it’s just so reminiscent of many other films of the same genre from the same time period.

It was great to see it again, even if it has been years since I last saw it. If you’ve never seen Red Dawn 1.0 and you enjoy action movies, you are doing yourself a disservice by not viewing the movie. I’ll be honest, if you don’t particularly like action movies this one may not be for you. But it’s classic 80s style and you get to see some big names when they are so young its fun to look back in time. Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Gray, and of course, the one and only C. Thomas Howell.

Just give it a chance, if you don’t like it in the first 20 minutes, you aren’t going to like it at all. I think that’s fair to say and if you don’t like it you’ll only have wasted 20 minutes. Not bad right? That’s if you trust my judgment and as I keep telling you every week, when it comes to movies and television, you should trust me. On to the next part.

I started watching The Outlaws, which was co-created by Stephen Merchant, of the original British show The Office, which he created with Ricky Gervais. Merchant is great and I knew he created this show, so I can’t remember exactly why I haven’t watched this until now. There are times when I don’t want to watch something that only has 1 or 2 seasons available because I want to know the whole story. Impatient? Yes. But in fairness to me, the world has turned us all into immediate gratification types and while I do my best to fight those impulses, no one is perfect.

The Outlaws premise is that a group of people from very different backgrounds run into trouble with the law and are forced into community service to make up for their various mistakes. We receive information on why everyone is there little by little and I quite enjoyed that actually. The way the story develops allows some of that being kept from us to be valuable in terms of keeping the tension and mystery at the forefront.

What also drew me to this show is that Christopher Walken stars in it. I’m a huge Christopher Walken fan, I mean who isn’t? His showdown scene with Dennis Hopper in True Romance is quite simply one of the best head to head scenes I’ve seen in any film, ever. Period. If you haven’t seen True Romance, forget everything I am telling you to watch this week and go see that. It’s one of my favorite movies and one of the most underrated and underappreciated films I’ve ever seen.

At this point I must tell you that I’ve not yet watched season 2. I will be watching that shortly, but the first season was so good I wanted to go over it with you. Not wanting to give too much away, the seven people doing their community service sort of form their own friendships and break off into their own smaller groups.

This leads to some interesting bedfellows as they say. One of the characters, Christian, is a man trying to stay away from the gangster life he once enjoyed so he can take care of his sister Esma. Suffice to say that he isn’t as successful in his efforts as he would like and it leads to some sticky situations.

We also have the nerdy high school age student who compulsively steals, the aging activist who has nothing but press clippings in her life, a goofy lawyer (Merchant) who readily admits he is a terrible attorney, an internet famous social media personality, a conservative businessman who is certainly more than a little bigoted and racist, and finally Frank (Walken) who is a lifelong con artist and criminal.

Without giving away too much, I’ll tell you that Christian is drawn back to his past comrades to make sure his former crew stay away from his sister. Long story short, he ends up in the possession of something he shouldn’t and through some unfortunate reasons, the money ends up in the hands of some others in the community service group.

This show is very entertaining, it’s a good touch on the human condition. They describe it as a thriller, and believe me, there are definitely thriller elements to it. But I think it’s important to note that this is a story of people.

The show creators and writers do a superb job of communicating the humanity of the people in the group. Though the white businessman is rude and bigoted and racist, in the course of the show you are allowed to understand why he became this way. And in my view, the writers aren’t telling the audience we should just ignore his ignorance and hatred. They make it evident he didn’t become this way on his own. It’s a good commentary on nature vs. nurture even though I may be pulling more from the show than they intend.

Give The Outlaws a view, it’s definitely worth the time. If you’re a huge fan of British shows, which I am, you’ll enjoy this show. Even if you’re not a Britbox type person like me, I think you’ll still find this show incredibly good. Until next time…