“I didn’t come to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.” - Trautman (First Blood)
It all started in 1982, when drifter John Rambo, a Vietnam Veteran, traveled to small town America. What began as a search for an old army buddy drastically turned deadly when the Sheriff (played by the immortal Brian Dennehy) decided to pester him. First Blood, easily the only “real” movie of the Rambo franchise, was the name of this picture and one that referred to incident at hand. Rambo was minding his own business, traveling on his way, when the wide-mouthed Sheriff treated him to some unfriendly hospitality.
But what began as a comment about the difficulty some veterans had readjusting to civilian life, ended up turning into an explosive popcorn franchise. Rambo became an army of one who could take out entire countries before dinner.
It’s been almost 20 years since John Rambo has graced us with his presence. Rambo, the first of the series to be written and directed by Stallone himself, is a violently fun ride that makes up for its lack of plot or depth with enough action to give a small child a seizure.
The story begins with Rambo living in Thailand. There, a group of missionaries convince him to take them into Burma against his better judgment. The country has been ravaged by war for decades. Peasants and farmers are shown as getting the worst of it, as the military destroys villages, murders, and plunders about the countryside. The goodhearted missionaries expect to change all that.
They can’t, however, and the village they situated themselves in gets taken over by a Burmese military group. So Rambo takes it upon himself to gather a group of fighters to go into Burma and rescue the missionaries. You know what that means, right?
Rambo is exactly the film you want it to be. It has little dialogue, plenty of action, and a nice load of blood and guts splattered throughout. Fans of Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III will dig this film like no other, while those hoping for a more serious picture (like the first one was) will be left with shattered hopes. Stallone wasn’t trying to make some statement about war or genocide; he was giving his fans what they wanted and he succeeded.
There are a few things absent this time around though and these missing details are easily noticeable. Richard Crenna’s Colonial Trautman character, from the first three Rambo films, obviously doesn’t make an appearance(sadly he passed away a few years ago). The same goes for composer Jerry Goldsmith (he also passed away), who scored the other films to great success, but new composer Brian Tyler used a lot of Goldsmith’s previous themes rather wonderfully, without straight-up mimicking them.
The violence in this picture takes Rambo to a whole new level. There were actually a few moments where I found myself asking, “How did this movie get away with just an R rating?” There are quite a few people here who explode real good and turn into soup. With the weaponry Rambo is using though, you can’t help but think the level of realism is somewhat accurate. Is it easy to remove one’s innards with a simple slice of the stomach? Probably, when you’re using a knife bigger than a machete.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:14 am
I was waiting for the B5 certification. good for stallone. I wish he would do something like Cop Land again.
January 25th, 2008 at 11:30 am
YES!
I am going to go see this now! I couldn’t decide if I liked it from watching the previews. But I’ll give it a shot now for sure.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
[…] A Rambo Review - Bronson Five […]
January 26th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
i just got in from seeing this movie
i thought it was one hell of a way to end the series it was an asome movie
the story the gore everything was just kickass it was the best yet
January 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
He actually was using a machete. Nothing worse then when the critics try to write about the technical side of weaponry used in the film:)
January 27th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I know it was a machete… it was a comment on the typical knives found in the Rambo series.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Yes it’s true, the film has really stylized violence, but I was laughing very hard during those sequences! They are amazing (there are probably some computer graphics in the bloodshed, but it moves so fast you barely notice).
Great job Stallone!!!
January 27th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
[…] couple days ago but didn’t transcribe it until tonight. I was also going to watch the fourth Rambo film during the weekend, but I had to re-schedule that to I don’t know when. Possibly Tuesday […]
February 10th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Michael,
Sad news today (2/10/08), Roy Scheider passed.
According to his Wikipedia entry, Scheider was the original choice for John Rambo.
It would have been a very different movie with Roy in the lead.
Scheider was an intense guy, and I know this from my brief experiences working on SeaQuest. He had a bit of a reputation as a prick around these parts, but when the role was right for him (like Jaws, and All That Jazz) he was brilliant.
Big loss.
Chris
February 11th, 2008 at 8:10 am
I saw that Chris… it is indeed sad. And I (sadly) knew of the Rambo connection… it’s hard not to know when you’re an action movie junkie.
All That Jazz is an amazing film, as was he in the role. Tis a sad day.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:39 am
http://thebigbadfilmreview.blogspot.com/
Alternate Title:
Rambo-4 arms
Ram-Bore
This film had such a weak story line it could only be strung out for an hour and a half. It basically concerns a group of christian missionaries being held hostage in Burma, and Rambo, along with a group of mercenaries, being contracted by a Pastor to free them.
Rambo 4 is in stark contrast to the other Rambos where he muscle posed his way to self glory. In this film, however, he must have been too self conscious of his love handles and sausage veins that the central focus of Rambo, and his character as a whole for that matter, was his forearms.
The Burmese soldiers were portrayed as verminous killing scum who feed live people to pigs, and Sly even makes further propaganda swipes at Burmese generals by portraying the one in this movie as a raper of young boys.
The killing is so gratuitous and lustful, you wonder what kind of sick, sado-masterbatory audience could enjoy this snuff movie. Rambo manages to effortlessly kill everybody in every imaginable way, and would have encountered more resistance had the Burmese army been replaced by a bunch of grannies armed with knitting needles and balls of wool. And where the hell he manages to find , in the middle of the jungle, some kind of huge, thermo-nuclear device to detonate at short notice is any one’s guess.
This abomination of a movie further insult by trying to add believability to this sado-wet dream, by allowing Rambo to get a slight nick from a bullet to his shoulder in the last minutes of the film, as he’s mopping up the final remaining Burmese ’skittle’ soldiers.
It was a pity Rambo’s Kernel is no longer alive as he was the real star of the Rambo franchise and provided the only hint of class and proper acting.
Anyone claiming this was just a bit of fun should watch again the actual footage of the suffering of the Burmese people shown at the beginning of this film, appreciate how Sly has tried to glorify himself at their expense, and then should proceed straight to the doctors and have their brains checked out for advanced syphilis.