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Red Dawn
In the aftermath of a financial crisis in the European Union and the weakening of NATO, collaborative dealings have occurred between a progressively militant North Korea and an ultranationalist Russia. The American mainland has become largely undefended from the increased deployment of U.S. troops abroad, and American infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks.
U.S. Marine Jed Eckert is on home leave in Spokane, Washington, where he reunites with his father, Spokane Police Sergeant Tom Eckert, his brother, Matt Eckert, and his childhood friend Toni Walsh and her cousin Erica Martin, Matt's girlfriend. Matt, the quarterback for his football team, blew a playoff game because of his cowboy antics. After the city suffers a blackout, Jed and Matt witness North Korean paratroopers and transport aircraft invading the town. Their father tells them to escape to their cabin in the woods while he helps the townspeople. They're joined by Matt's friends Robert Kitner, Daryl Jenkins, Danny Jackson, siblings Julie and Greg Goodyear, a stranger named Pete, and his buddy. After Erica is captured, Toni joins them as well.
As the group debates whether to surrender or resist, Pete and his buddy steal their supplies, inadvertently betraying their position. Captain Cho and his soldiers order Daryl's father, the mayor, to convince the group to surrender. Sergeant Eckert refuses to cooperate and is executed by Cho after encouraging them to resist, and the cabin is then torched to the ground. Jed is determined to fight back, and the group joins him. Under Jed's training, the group learns to hunt for survival, use weapons, and establish a base in an abandoned mine. The group, naming themselves the Wolverines after their school mascot, stage guerrilla attacks on soldiers and collaborators, including Pete, who is killed in a bombing. During a plot to eliminate the leadership during a rally, Jed soon finds Russian Spetsnaz working with the North Korean army. However, Cho discovers their bomb, compromising their mission. Matt recklessly strays from the plan to free Erica, who was on a prison transport, but Greg is killed in the process. The North Koreans find their location and retaliate with artillery fire, destroying their base, and killing Danny and Julie.
The surviving Wolverines later encounter U.S. Marines Sergeant Major Andrew Tanner, Corporal Smith, and Sergeant Hodges, who reveal that a Russian-backed North Korean forces used a EMP weapon to disable the U.S. electrical grid and crippled the military forces, immediately followed by landings along the east and west coasts. American counterattacks eventually halted their advances, leaving a large area stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians as "Free America" while pockets of resistance continue to oppose the invasion. The Wolverines learn that Captain Cho's suitcase contains an EMP-resistant radiotelephone, and if they can steal it, the U.S. command could use it to their advantage in a counter-offensive. The Wolverines help the Marines infiltrate the police department, which is being used as the North Koreans' operation center, and steal the suitcase. Jed kills Cho, though Hodges is killed in the firefight.
The Wolverines and Marines regroup at a safe house with the suitcase, but Jed is killed in an ambush by Russian Spetsnaz. As Matt and the group escape with the suitcase, Robert discovers that Daryl was tagged by the Russians with a subcutaneous tracking device during the police station raid. Knowing he cannot go with them, Daryl stays behind to buy time for the others as they head to the Marines' extraction point. Tanner and Smith depart with the suitcase, while the remaining Wolverines stay to continue fighting under Matt's leadership.