| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | Cinema |
Right to Bear Arms
Interesting and intelligent movie about a conventional Soviet-backed Cuban invasion of the United States. It possesses enough realistic political detail to convince us that what we are watching could have been possible.
The basic premiss is little more than a cataclysmic justification for the right of private citizens to own semi-automatic assault rifles: That the filmmakers know perfectly well the events depicted are unlikely does not stop their political argument from developing a life of its own.
The Soviets and their Cuban and Nicaraguan allies are depicted as fully-fledged characters in their own right; making the drama all the more convincing and engaging.
The exploration of what it takes to be a real man is reminiscent of Howard Hawks’ best work. This perhaps explains why so many White American males take their sons hunting to teach them not only martial skills, but also the necessary manly attributes of wilderness survival.
Female relationships get short shrift here, but it still makes a nice change to see American youngsters having to grow up quickly rather than spend their days in self-indulgently worshiping their sexual proclivities.
The film’s cleverness lies in its willingness to address issues of the pointlessness of resistance to military occupation when few civilians are willing to help and the resistance is being picked off, one-by-one. It does this even as it offers the emotional pleasures of that very resistance.
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