In the ensuing chaos a group of young adults escape to the Colorado mountains with rudimentary supplies and weapons. After hiding out for some weeks they return to town only to find many people they knew dead and those remaining living in fear of the occupiers.
They resolve to fight back, engaging in partisan activity under the banner of their High School football team, The Wolverines.
CW: war crimes and quite a lot of mostly bloodless battle scenes
I've not seen this before and it slightly surprised me. Yes the occupying communists are mostly portrayed as stupid and/or brutal, just there to be gunned down by The Wolverines but it's not quite as a much of survivalist/libertarian wet dream as I'd expected.
The Wolverines have improbable success with no training or seeming knowledge of how to fight early on but it's probably no more ridiculous than most 80s action fare.
Then they start dying.
Aside from leader Jed (Patrick Swayze) and Toni (Jennifer Grey) who acts as bait/saboteur playing on the occupiers' interest in a pretty girl they're all rather interchangeable though.
There's no real plot or plan just a montage of scenes over a period of months as the state of the occupation and country changes.
There's no great 'win' just a call to honour fallen patriots in a flashforward at the end from the survivors.
We see our heroes grapple with becoming callous themselves and see some sympathetic behaviour from a disillusioned occupier but neither thing is ever very seriously explored. There isn't time, it's drawing a very broad picture of a tiny slice of a war.
Not conventional for its time 6/10, better than expected but also mostly an A-Team version of the horrors of war and resistance that looks dated now.