The opening scene takes place at a high school in Calumet, Colo. Suddenly, Russian troops parachute onto the lawn, in a surprise attack on America ...

... Alright, stop the movie. How the hell did communists make it all the way to Colorado?

Later it's explained that the invasion came from two directions: Mexico (which in the film had recently fallen to communists) where half a million troops had amassed, and from the north, where 60 divisions of Russian troops flooded across Alaska and then down through Canada. Both forces were presumably marching to converge on a small high school in Colorado to knock out America's Swayze capability before it could be mobilized.

You've got to lock that shit down.

So let's start with the north. Keep in mind, a military division is anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 troops. Sixty of those, showing up in Alaska. Excuse me? Have they never played Risk before? How the hell did the U.S. miss the 600,000 troops even back when they were amassing in Kamchatka?

But Kamchatka is totally on the other side of the board!

The U.S. intelligence networks and spy satellites then failed to notice this massive army as it moved south across 3,500 miles of land to reach the USA? And what the hell did we do to piss off Canada, that nobody there bothered to pick up the phone and let us know thousands and thousands of Red Army tanks and jeeps and support vehicles were clanking down the highway?

Mounties aren't as on-the-ball as you'd think.

As for the half a million Latin American troops amassing in Mexico? We have politicians calling for military troops at the Mexican border now, just to stop immigrants from sneaking across and taking landscaping jobs from Americans. In a hypothetical universe where Mexico turned communist and hostile, the moment our spy satellites saw one communist tank rolling northward, every single bomber in the U.S. Air Force would be flying south with the intention of making everything from Texas to the Panama Canal look like the surface of the Moon.

Who in the hell was in command of homeland defense in the Red Dawn universe?

As for the paratroopers on campus, we're told that the invaders used military planes disguised as commercial jets, a strategy that the Russians really did use during the invasion of Afghanistan. We understand this was a pre-9/11 world, but nobody at the FAA noticed hundreds and hundreds of extra flights swarming in from communist countries that day?

Apparently that's what you get when you fire all the air traffic controllers.

The numbers aren't any better on the ground. When the Wolverines go to view the front, they find themselves trapped in the crossfire of a tank battle -- that is, a single, lonely U.S. tank doing battle against two Soviet tanks.

After taking a few shots, the U.S. tank waits patiently as the Wolverines take heavy machine gun fire from the other Soviet tank. After the second tank is disabled by a Wolverine rocket, one of the Wolverines uses the last of his strength to throw a smoke grenade to signal the U.S. tank. Finally, the U.S. tank realizes that it's a goddamn tank and takes shots to destroy the two already-disabled tanks. What the fuck was it waiting for?

Sorry, didn't want to be rude and interrupt your battle.

Are you seeing a pattern here? America ran into more resistance in Grenada than the Reds met in the middle of the freaking American heartland.

We know the United States has agents embedded in the occupied part of America at the time -- the Radio Free America broadcast sends coded messages like "The chair is against the wall" and "John has a long mustache." Apparently there is no code for "Can anyone help those brave but outmatched high schoolers fighting crack commandos in Colorado?"

The code is "The minors need a bottle opener for their Coors."

And it's not like the U.S. government doesn't know about Swayze's crew; when staying one night with a friendly family, the kids learn that they are known about in the free territory as far as California. Jed's reputation as a leader has spread and made him a folk hero. That's where they learn that there are rumors the military may be sending Green Berets!

Once spring gets here.

Really? Spring? Special Forces that swam the gator-infested swamps of Cambodia, marched the mosquito-thick forests of Vietnam and climbed the cold, barren peaks of Afghanistan can't handle a winter in richly forested and supplied Colorado?

Pictured: People tougher than Red Dawn universe Special Forces.

Judging from what the group of teenagers and an Air Force pilot were able to do with no help or training (they get some basic tips from the pilot, but his expertise is in flying a jet, not organizing an insurgency), you'd have to think the town was one small unit of Green Berets away from marching a Fourth of July parade past the smoldering hulks of Soviet military hardware. But it was winter and that 40-mile trek was just too much.

Two centuries prior, Washington was crossing rivers in below-freezing temperatures on Christmas.

The military passes up not only an easy victory, but a major propaganda opportunity as well. Liberate the Wolverines and have them travel across Free America and on TV talking about their amazing success overthrowing the Soviets. Have them speak at morale-boosting rallies and pitch joining the military or buying war bonds. Put them on Radio Free America to encourage other Americans to rise up and resist the Commies.

Meanwhile, Cuban Col. Bella catches up to Matt and Jed and raises his assault rifle to fire. But his disillusionment with war and respect for the boys prevails, and he waves them off, allowing them one final emotional moment together in the park before they die.

This sequence has to be the most damning of the entire film. In the end, the Soviet/Latin American invasion force learns to respect the toughness and tenacity of those all-American kids. The American military, meanwhile, doesn't give two shits about them.

WHERE'S THEIR PARADE?!

Just in case we miss this point, it's driven home in the final scene ...