Basil Poledouris has written some good scores for his college buddy John Milius.  Following the big success of both Big Wednesday and Conan the Barbarian, it was inevitable that the composer would be asked back for Red Dawn, Milius's futuristic telling of whupping the commies' asses in World War III while wearing 1980s clothing.  Never one to shy from patriotic fervour, Milius got Poledouris to wring every ounce of red-white-and-blue sweat from every proud Reaganite.

The score is based around two themes, both pieces of patriotic Americana that are a bit like Copland on acid.  Each is very exciting however and certainly fits the bill of what the film needed.  Much of the score, and certainly all of the action music, is based around these interchangeable themes, and Poledouris does more than enough with them to keep things fresh and interesting throughout.  Unfortunately, they are both marred (as indeed is much of the score) by the appearance of cheap 1980s synths.  Now, every even vaguely futuristic or fantastical film produced during the decade had to use them, but even Jerry Goldsmith seems the model of restraint when compared with what Poledouris did in Red Dawn.  Synth brass inexplicably replaces real brass which renders everything so cheap-sounding and naff that it's incredibly difficult to take anything seriously, or even to keep a straight face sometimes.

This extends into the non-action music as well, when various twinkling sounds tend to accompany proceedings a lot of the time.  A cue like "The Eulogy" would seem so much more sincere - and easy to like - without the synths.  Still, it was 1984 and I guess most film composers were still rather wet behind the ears when it came to synthesisers.

Despite the flaws, the action cues like "The Invasion", "Wolverines" and especially "Robert's End" feature some magnificent writing for orchestra, with some thrilling work for trumpets and horns especially.  It's only 34 minutes long and some of it may be cheesy beyond belief, but the best sections rank alongside anything Poledouris has written and so for his fans, this is a must-have, though it was actually the first score ever released by the Intrada label and consequently can now be difficult to get hold of.

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