Line #23 Film/RedScorpion


1	[[quoteright:214:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Red_Scorpion_8114.jpg]]
2
3	->''First he was their weapon. Now he is their punishment.''
4	-->-- '''{{Tagline}}'''
5
6	An action film from the year 1988, directed by Joseph Zito and starring Creator/DolphLundgren.
7
8	Lt. Nikolai Petrovich Radchenko is a Spetsnaz who is given a mission to help Cuban communists stationed in Africa to get rid of the resistance leader Sundata who's opposing them. But he soon learns that the man is doing the right thing, and eventually [[HeelFaceTurn joins him]] in his fight.
9
10	The film was followed by a loose sequel in 1995, where a RagtagBunchOfMisfits special operatives are enlisted to take down an aspiring Nazi ideologists within American soil.
11	-----
12	!!''Red Scorpion'' contains examples of:
13
14	* AlliterativeName: Kallunda Kintash.
15	* AnArmAndALeg: When Zayas threatens Nikolai with a grenade, Nikolai shoots his arm off and Zayas ends [[HoistByHisOwnPetard blown up himself]].
16	* TheAtoner: Nikolai following his HeelFaceTurn.
17	* BarBrawl: Nikolai starts trouble in a bar as a ploy to get caught by the MP's and befriend Kallunda.
18	* BecomingTheMask: Nikolai's fake HeelFaceTurn turned into a real one.
19	* BigBadDuumvirate: Soviet Gen. Vortek and Cuban Cpt. Zayas.
20	* BigGood: Sundata, the leader of LaResistance.
21	* BlatantLies: At the beginning of the movie, during Nikolai's mission briefing, Kallunda and Sundata are introduced as brutal warlords who oppress their people.
22	* {{Bulungi}}: The film is set in Mombaka, a Marxist African state in the middle of a civil war, serving as a direct {{expy}} of Angola.
23	* ChaseScene: The escape from Cuamo.
24	* ChildSoldiers: Seen among Sundata's rebel camp.
25	* ChummyCommies: Nikolai Petrovich Radchenko, the most noble Spetsnaz operative.
26	* ColdBloodedTorture: Cuban's subject Nikolai to some to get information about his purpose in Cuamo.
27	* CruelMercy: Sundata spares Nikolai's life after he tries to assassinate Sundata. However...
28	-->'''Sundata''': ''I leave you as an insult to your people. They will find him, and see that even their most perfect tools of war cannot harm us. And they will deal with him in ways [[ColdBloodedTorture that ourselves could never bear]].''
29	* DefectorFromDecadence: Nikolai by the end of the movie.
30	* DespairEventHorizon: After [[spoiler:Sundata's death]], Kallunda and the rest of LaResistance lose all hope. Nikolai [[MoodWhiplash quickly snaps them out of it]].
31	* DirtyCommunists: Classic Soviet kind and the rarely used Cuban kind are present.
32	* DoomedHometown: Kallunda, after escaping from a Cuban camp and later surviving the ChaseScene, is eager to return to his village... only to find it destroyed by the Soviets.
33	* DramaticNecklaceRemoval: After receiving the Mark of the Hunter from the bushman elder, Nikolai throws his dogtags away.
34	* {{Eagleland}}: Dewey is a mixed case. He's a loudmouth who swears a lot and isn't really an ideal role model, but he is also a reporter working to get local atrocities known and to bring peace to the land.
35	* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: Nikolai isn't just some Army grunt. He's Spetsnaz.
36	* GoingNative: The bushman tribe eventually accepts Nikolai as one of their own.
37	* GratuitousSpanish: Whenever the Cubans are around, so it's [[JustifiedTrope justified]].
38	* HeelFaceTurn: Nikolai at first ''pretends'' to go through this in order to get close to Sundata and assassinate him. After he fails and he's betrayed by his superiors and their Cuban allies, he switches sides for real.
39	* HeelRealization: Nikolai realizes how corrupt and brutal his country he had served once witnessing the aftermath of such atrocities and how he gets on the receive end of them.
40	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:Sundata takes a hit from the Hind while saving a little girl and lives just long enough to witness Nikolai's HeelFaceTurn]].
41	* HotBlooded: Dewey. Quoth Nikolai with a grin:
42	-->"He's a very emotional man."
43	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Dewey doesn't waste any opportunity to [[JerkassToOne demonstrate his contempt for Russians in general and Nikolai in particular]]. [[JerkassHasAPoint Justifiable]], [[ThisIsUnforgivable since he has witnessed first hand the Russians crossing the]] MoralEventHorizon [[ThisIsUnforgivable quite a few times]]. He [[TookALevelInKindness eventually warms up]] to Nikolai during the FinalBattle.
44	* KickTheDog: The [[DirtyCommies communists]] are portrayed here as ruthless monsters, constantly attacking and killing civilians (even [[WouldHurtAChild children]]), going so far as to use chemical weapons against them.
45	* KubrickStare: One rebel gives Nikolai one when he arrives to Sundata's camp.
46	* MentorOccupationalHazard: Averted. [[spoiler:The bushman elder is probably the only survivor of a Russian attack with chemical weapons on his tribe]].
47	* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Nikolai's actual HeelFaceTurn is prompted by his superiors turning on him and submitting him to ColdBloodedTorture.
48	* MightyWhitey: Of course, LaResistance doesn't manage to get rid of the Communists until Nikolai personally leads them to victory.
49	* TheMole: Nikolai was sent as a fake defector to get close to the leader of the rebels, but the latter weren't that gullible.
50	* MyCountryRightOrWrong: Nikolai relies on this when he has doubts about carrying out his mission. Later on he decides to rely on the ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight after his country betrays him.
51	* NobleSavage: The bushman tribe, particularly their elder, who saves Nikolai from the brink of death, teaches him how to survive in the African wilderness and eventually gifts him the Mark of the Hunter, a honor among his people.
52	* LaResistance: Sundata's guerrillas
53	* LargeHam: Dewey, who spends almost every second of screentime he has showing off his [[NoIndoorVoice lack of indoors voice]] and his [[SirSwearsALot love for injurious expellitives]].
54	-->'''Nikolai''': ''Noisy little [[PrecisionFStrike fuck]]''.
55	* LetsGetDangerous:
56	-->'''Nikolai''': ''Let's kick some ass!''
57	* OhCrap: Nikolai's face when Sundata catches him red handed during his assassination attempt says it all.
58	* RedshirtArmy: Every encounter between the guerrillas and the Soviet-Cuban coalition forces is a CurbstompBattle in favor of the later, until the final battle.
59	* RedScare: Bonus points for having the distinction of being a UsefulNotes/ColdWar movie made by a future government official.
60	* SceneryPorn: The movie was filmed in the Namibian deserts, and there are plenty of beautiful shots of them.
61	* ShirtlessScene: Nikolai gets several of these in the course of the movie.
62	* SirSwearsALot: Dewey. For it is the right of an American!
63	* TankGoodness: A tank tries to hinder the escape of Nikolai and company from Cuamo.
64	* TokenGoodTeammate: Nikolai is this for the DirtyCommunists.
65	* UseYourHead: Nikolai attacks his first opponent in the bar brawl with a headbutt.
66	* WhatMeasureIsAMook: Nikolai had no problem gunning down his own even before he switched sides.
67	* VillainProtagonist: Nikolai started out as this, even if he was an AntiVillain compared to his sadistic comrades, until his HeelFaceTurn.
68	* YouHaveFailedMe: Gen. Vortek isn't too pleased with Nikolai's failure to kill Sundata.
69	-->'''Gen. Vortek''': ''How could you fail? [[SuddenlyShouting HOW!?]]''
70
71	!!The sequel contains the examples of:
72
73	* BigBad: Andrew Kendrick, a neo-Nazi white supremacist determined to take over the United States.
74	* ContinuityNod: Nikolai is briefly mentioned by his former mentor. Which is the only link between the two movies aside from the name.
75	* NotQuiteDead: [[spoiler: Hans is somehow still alive even after being ''electrocuted'', and the squad quickly gun him down as they escape from the CollapsingLair.]]
76	* NumberedSequels
77	* PublicDomainArtifact: [[TheLanceOfLonginus The Spear of Longinus]], though it is not shown to have the mystic properties like usually in fiction.
78	* RightWingMilitiaFanatic: The main villains.
79	%%* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Initially.
80	* ThoseWackyNazis: The main antagonists of the movie.

Context Film / RedScorpion