Rambo: Last Blood.

John Rambo fights what is likely to be his last battle...

Release Date: Sept. 20, 2019. Running Time: 89 minutes (theatrical), 101 minutes (extended cut). Screenplay: Matthew Cirulnick, Sylvester Stallone. Producer: Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, Yariv Lerner, Les Weldon. Director: Adrian Grünberg.

NOTE: This review is based on the extended international version.


THE PLOT:

Rambo has returned home, having inherited his family's Arizona horse ranch. He lives on the ranch with his housekeeper, Maria (Adriana Barraza) and her granddaughter, Gabriela (Yvette Monreal), who has a father/daughter relationship with Rambo. He still suffers from PTSD and mostly keeps to himself, though he does occasionally help the local police by acting as a tracker.

Gabriela hears from an old school friend, Gizelle (Fenessa Pineda), who moved back to Mexico. Gizelle tells Gabriela that her long-estranged father is living in the very same town, prompting Gabriela to make a trip across the border to try to reunite with him.

When she doesn't return, Rambo - realizing where she has gone - follows her across the border. He learns that she has been kidnapped by a cartel run by the Martinez Brothers: the erratic Victor (Óscar Jaenada) and the coldly ruthless Hugo (Sergio Peris-Mencheta). They intend to force Gabriela into prostitution, and respond to Rambo's interference with immediate violence - prompting the old Green Beret to go to war one last time!

Gabriela (Yvette Monreal), Rambo's surrogate daughter, is kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel.

CHARACTERS:

Rambo: This film has plenty of flaws, but Sylvester Stallone gives a fully committed performance.  As in most of the previous films, his nonverbal acting is what really sells the character.  Rambo may have found a measure of peace in his new life, but he remains haunted by his past. The local sheriff casually refers to him as a "Vietnam burnout," which seems accurate enough.  Rambo spends much of his time hunched in tunnels he has dug beneath his property, listening to Vietnam-era music while recalling his past. When Gabriella argues that her father might have changed because Rambo did, he replies that he hasn't changed - He just struggles to "keep a lid on" his old rage. As the story progresses, that rage begins to boil - until, when he approaches the villainous Hugo at the very end, he's all but loping toward him like an animal coming to claim its kill.

Gabriela: Yvette Monreal, as the stubborn but disastrously naive Gabriella, is almost an equal lead for the film's first half.  Unfortunately, Monreal's performance is much weaker than Stallone's. She does some decent nonverbal acting, as when she reacts to her birth father's rejection or to her new situation after her abduction.  However, her actual line deliveries tend to fall flat, particularly in the early scenes that establish the relationship between her and Rambo, which makes it much harder to get invested in her as a character than if the performance had been just a bit better.

Carmen: A Mexican journalist who has obsessively followed the Martinez brothers since her sister suffered the same fate as Gabriela. She rescues Rambo after he narrowly survives an ambush, then provides exposition about the region's human trafficking and prostitution problems. Paz Vega does well with what she's given, but Carmen is more plot device than character. Near the end, Rambo returns to her to ask for help... but we never actually see how she helps him (not even in the longer version), making me suspect something was cut that should have been retained.

Hugo: The primary villain. We're introduced to him talking to another crime boss about expanding his business, in a sequence that mainly exists to establish the relationship between him and his brother, Victor: Victor is a cokehead who behaves erratically, while Hugo is the more level-headed (and thus more dangerous) of the two. Actor Sergio Peris-Mencheta manages to invest a hint of real menace, which helps to elevate Hugo above the generic baddie he's been scripted as.  Still, as Rambo villains go, I'd have to rank him below all the others save for Rambo III's pathetic Col. Zaysen.  As is also true of Adriana Barraza and Paz Vega, the actor is good; but he's simply not given anything interesting to do.

Rambo and Gabriela, in happier times.

THOUGHTS:

Rambo: Last Blood opened to the kind of critical drubbing usually reserved for slasher movies and direct-to-streaming action cheapies. It was bashed as clichéd, brutal, stupid, and even racist. Of those criticisms, I'd only seriously argue with the last one; there are at least as many sympathetic Latino characters in the film as villainous ones (not counting cannon fodder), and I'm fully prepared to attach a "dregs of humanity" label to human traffickers of any ethnicity. I'd have a hard time rating Last Blood as any more anti-Latino than Taken was anti-French.

In its longer cut at least, I don't find it to be anywhere near as bad as its reputation. This is mostly a serviceable action flick, and it is greatly elevated by an excellent Sylvester Stallone performance; in this film, particularly in its second half, Rambo feels not so much world-weary as outright world-beaten, and his characterization makes a surprisingly good companion piece to the (much better) previous film.

Sadly, I can't argue with the comparisons of this film to direct-to-video action fodder.  Stallone may deliver his "A" game, but the rest of this feels decidedly "B" grade.  David Morrell, the author of the novel First Blood, blasted it by observing that the main character might as well have been named "John Smith" for all the difference it would make to the plot, and I'd mostly agree with that assessment.

Still, evaluated not as a Rambo film but just as a mean, nasty little "B" action movie, it's not a bad one. Does the climax resemble a blood-soaked, Vietnam-themed Home Alone minus the laughs? Sure, but so did the climax to Skyfall - and as in that film, the final set piece manages to be grimly effective.

Rambo falls afoul of Mexican cartel members in the lawless town of... er, Mexico.

GENERIC SETTINGS

By Hollywood action movie standards, the Rambo films have generally done well in portraying their settings: small-town Washington; (comic book) Vietnam; a grimly realistic war-torn Burma. Even the otherwise woeful Rambo III managed to slip in references to Afghan history and culture. This is the first Rambo movie that completely fails in this regard. The action takes place in two main areas: "Generic Mexican City" and "Generic Ranch."

I suspect the crime-controlled Mexican town is meant to be Juarez. So why not name it as such, with some details specific to that city? The scenes with Carmen, the journalist, would seem ready-made for efficiently telling us how the regular townspeople go about their lives amidst the corruption and violence... But no, we get no details at all to convince us that we're anywhere other than in a studio lot. Show this movie to aliens from outer space, and they couldn't be faulted for assuming that "Mexico" is the name of a particularly lawless town rather than a country.  Heck, replace all mentions of "Mexico" with "Mos Eisley," and it would remain the exact same movie... only possibly with lightsabers!

Rambo's ranch is just as bland. We see him breaking horses, but we are given no sense of who his clients might be, how much business he gets, what other work is done, or how he keeps the place afloat. We see only a couple of horses, no crops, no other animals, and no workers beyond his housekeeper. We don't know where this ranch is located in relation to other Arizona towns; all we know is that it is "near the border." It's what I'd expect in a first draft, a stopgap waiting for the writer to add some texture based on research. 

Lest I come across as too negative, let me repeat: Last Blood is, in my opinion, a much better movie than Rambo III. It's basically a Taken knockoff... but it's a better one than either of Taken's actual sequels (admittedly a low bar). Still, it's easily the laziest entry in a series that has often been dumb, but that has never before been this generic.

A Rambo film isn't a Rambo film without a bow and arrow..

VERSIONS

I'm basing this review on the 101-minute international version, which is likely why the tone of my review is less negative than most US critics were. A full 12 minutes were shaved off for the US theatrical release, which honestly baffles me. At 101 minutes, Last Blood is already short by action movie standards, and it's briskly paced. After watching the movie, I went online to look up what was cut... and that made me even more baffled.

The major removal is of the opening scenes, which show Rambo volunteering to rescue three hikers lost in a storm. He is only able to save one of the hikers: one woman is already dead when he arrives, and her husband refuses to accept the truth and runs from his would-be rescuer. Not only is this far more cinematic than "Rambo works on his ranch," but it establishes via action the character's guilt and his need to try to save somebody, both of which will drive him through the story to follow.

Also removed: Scenes with Rambo and Gabriela that create a sense of their bond; a scene with Rambo and Gabriela's grandmother that establishes them as an ad-hoc family; references to Rambo's PTSD; and a scene that lays out the relationship, hierarchy, and individual personalities of the villainous Martinez brothers.

Basically, it seems that any slivers of thematic unity, characterization, or character arc were removed.  Now, I'm quite sure this film would have received negative reviews in any case. Still, I can't help but wonder if the tone of those reviews might have been less hostile had the editors not yanked out the film's heart, leaving only the blood and guts behind.

Rambo waits for his prey to fall into his trap.

OVERALL:

In its longer version, Rambo: Last Blood doesn't live down to its worst reviews. On the other hand, even in its extended version, it feels less like a Rambo film than like a "B" action flick that the Rambo character was grafted onto.

I find myself reflecting again that Stallone should have let it rest with the fourth film. That movie, a genuinely good one, saw Rambo come full circle by saving Sarah and then returning home. In its extended version, this film really isn't bad... but in terms of the larger series, it barely qualifies as a minor epilogue.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Film: Rambo

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Rambo.

A world-weary John Rambo helps a group of missionaries against his better judgment. 

Release Date: Jan. 25, 2008. Running Time: 91 minutes. Screenplay: Art Monterastelli, Sylvester Stallone. Producer: Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, John Thompson. Director: Sylvester Stallone.


THE PLOT:

Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is still living in Thailand, subsisting by capturing cobras for local snake shows, when he's approached by a group of missionaries. Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze) wants to hire him to take them upriver into Burma, to provide medical aid to those targeted by the controlling regime. Rambo refuses, telling the missionaries that they should "go home." Michael's fiancée, Sarah (Julie Benz), refuses to accept that answer, arguing that saving lives is worth the risk, and her earnest sincerity convinces him to change his mind.

Ten days later, Rambo receives another visitor: Father Marsh (Ken Howard), the pastor of the missionaries' church. Marsh informs him that the group was captured, and that he's hired mercenaries to attempt a rescue. The job is just to transport the mercenaries upriver and then wait for their return. But having taken the missionaries into danger, Rambo feels compelled to join in the effort to get them out again...

Rambo loses patience with the naivete of missionary leader Michael (Paul Schulze).

CHARACTERS:

Rambo: That wisecrack-spewing joker we watched in the third film? Thankfully, he's gone, and the real Rambo is back. As in the first film, Rambo barely speaks, conveying his thoughts through his reactions (and sometimes non-reactions) to other characters. When he does talk, his voice seems to well up from a dark place, his every syllable laced with rage. He seems offended by the mere idea of the missionaries, people who think they can make the world better and who can't accept "what is." Despite this, some part of him is touched by Sarah's sincerity, and his attachment to her fuels his actions for the rest of the movie.

Sarah: She's naive but not weak, as she shows by refusing to allow Rambo to brush her off. When he snarls at her to go back to her "good life," she isn't cowed. She argues, and her words about how "saving a life isn't a waste of your life" sway him enough to agree to escort the missionaries - something he does explicitly for her. Rambo's attraction to her never comes across as a romantic one; it's more as if she represents a ray of light in the otherwise bleak world he inhabits.

Michael: The leader of the missionaries, he initially comes across as just another wimpy do-gooder. Remarkably, the character emerges as more. When captured, he does not turn into a sniveling coward. Instead, when the mercenaries arrive, he doesn't want to leave unless Sarah is also rescued. After one mercenary is injured by a land mine, he stops them from removing his boot (which would lead to rapid blood loss), and all but pushes the man's beefy comrades aside to lend aid.

Lewis: The mercenary leader, a former SAS agent who spends the trip upriver complaining incessantly. As with Michael, he seems set up to be a 2-dimensional cardboard foil, present to make Rambo look better... and as with Michael, there ends up being considerably more to his character. His planning of the rescue is meticulous, and even his decision to withdraw once the initial timetable has elapsed is strategically correct. Any doubts about his mettle are dispelled by the finale, in which he behaves downright heroically.

Major Tint: Former Burmese resistance fighter Maung Maung Khin agreed to play the villain of the piece in order to raise awareness of the horrors occurring in his country. Major Tint receives little direct characterization - I actually had to look up the character's name - instead acting as a personification of the ugliness revealed by war. He casually smokes a cigarette as civilians are gunned down in a rice field. Explosions are reflected in his sunglasses as he looks on calmly. There's no personal relationship between Tint and Rambo, no taunting or threats. They meet only once, and briefly. Nevertheless, there's a sense that when Rambo faces him he is actually facing a part of himself - a catharsis that just wasn't there when he dispatched the chattier villains of the previous two films.

Col. Trautman: The late Richard Crenna's Trautman is paid tribute to by a mid-film dream sequence that samples some of his key lines across the previous three films. The sequence also uses footage from First Blood's original ending, in which Trautman killed Rambo, to hammer home the idea of Rambo being at war with himself. Trautman's "Full Circle" speech from Rambo III ends up being a key component of both scene and film, and it is used to far better effect here than in the movie it was actually shot for.

Sarah (Julie Benz) finds herself in far over her head...

THOUGHTS:

2008's Rambo continues the series' tradition of every entry following a completely different title scheme. More importantly, it's the best movie in the series since 1982's First Blood. That's admittedly a low bar, so I'll go one better: With Rambo, director/star Sylvester Stallone has brought the series full circle, delivering a genuinely good motion picture that recalls the original in its lean, spare structure and grim tone.

The story is conveyed with minimal dialogue, just enough to tell us who the characters are and what the situation is. The violence, when it comes, is brutal. This movie is every bit as violent as the second and third films were - But there's nothing exciting about the gunfire and explosions here. Instead, the action is fast, sudden, and savage. For the most part, this feels entirely correct for the setting and situation. To put it simply: A genocide should not be comfortable.

This is the first entry in the series not to be scored by Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith's main theme is used to good effect, but the original music is by Brian Tyler. Tyler's score is not as good as Goldsmith's work in the first two films, but it's still atmospheric and effective - and far better than any of the generic material Goldsmith created for Rambo III.

The film is titled Rambo, and it ultimately is about him as a character. The key scene is the one in which he forges a new blade while reflecting to himself in voice over: "War is in your blood... You didn't kill for your country. You killed for yourself. God's never going to make that go away." Saving Sarah is saving whatever good may rest within himself - but to do that, he needs to accept and even embrace his own darkness.

For all the film gets right, there are some flaws. Sarah is too idealized to be entirely convincing; and while Julie Benz's nonverbal acting in the second half is fine, she struggles with some of the heavy-handed speeches early on. With the sole exception of Gavin McTavish's Lewis, the mercenaries Rambo accompanies receive about as much characterization as your average video game NPC. Finally, while most of the violence is effective, there are moments that cross the line into exploitation. Stallone later prepared an Extended Cut that beefed up the characterization and pulled back a bit on the gore, and that is probably the better version to watch... although it should be said that, save for the above reservations, the theatrical version is more than good enough as-is.

General Tint (Maung Maung Khin) calmly looks on as his forces burn a village to the ground.

OVERALL:

I think the highest praise to offer 2008's Rambo is that it met with the approval David Morrell, author of the 1972 novel that created the character. He endorsed the film, stating that it captured the character in a way that none of the other movies had. The "full circle" speech may have been delivered in Rambo III, but it really applies here, with an ending that brings the series back to its beginnings.

I'll keep an open mind for Rambo V: Last Blood. But given how perfect a close-out the ending to this (surprisingly good!) movie is, I can't help but suspect Stallone should have let this franchise end here.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Film: Rambo III
Next Film: Rambo - Last Blood

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Rambo III.

Rambo goes into a war zone to rescue Col. Trautman.

Release Date: May 25, 1988. Running Time: 101 minutes. Screenplay: Sylvester Stallone, Sheldon Lettich. Producer: Buzz Feitshans. Director: Peter MacDonald.


THE PLOT:

Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is staying at a Buddhist monastery, where he seems to finally found a semblance of peace helping the monks with repairs while competing in stick fighting matches for money. It's a simple life, but he likes it... until Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) tracks him down to ask for his help with another mission. Trautman is leading a team into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan to supply weapons to the Mujahideen resistance.

Rambo refuses the mission, declaring that "it has to end for (him) sometime."  A few days later, an embassy official (Kurtwood Smith) informs him that Trautman has been captured by the Russians. With his only friend now being tortured in a Soviet-controlled fortress, Rambo decides to go into Afghanistan to rescue him.

Which he does, with the assistance of a quippy Afghan guide (Sasson Gabi) and a clean-cut Afghan moppet (Doudi Shoua). And a bow-and-arrow, a bunch of explosives, a rocket launcher, a tank, and his signature "hunting" knife.

Trautman is questioned by Col. Zaysen (Marc de Jonge).

CHARACTERS:

Rambo: While the second film presented a simplified version of the character, with his psychological issues stripped away, at least in that film I consistently felt that Sylvester Stallone was still playing the character of John Rambo. That is no longer the case. In the early scenes at the monastery, I don't get much sense that Rambo is either haunted and hiding or that he's content or at peace. Instead, it just feels like Sylvester Stallone is posing on rooftops or in front of wheels. In the second half, he and Trautman exchange several quips. One example: After Rambo narrowly escapes an exploding Russian bomb, Trautman asks how he is; Rambo replies, "Well done." It's amusing, in a cheesy '80s action sort of way, but it feels a lot more like Sylvester Stallone, Movie Star than like John Rambo.

Col. Trautman: In six years, Trautman has yet to be promoted to general, even after being part of a mission that returned several POW's to America. How is that possible? Whose black book did he end up in? Oh, I forgot - It's a comic book movie, and his real first name is not Sam, but "Colonel." Trautman is apparently just as superhuman as Rambo. Even after days of torture, he's in full fighting shape - and even after being shot in the shoulder by a high-caliber rifle, he is still not only able to continue fighting, but to fire a high-recoil cannon.

Col. Zaysen: Like Rambo: First Blood, Part II, this movie features a one-dimensional Russian sadist as its villain. The second film's Podovsky worked a lot better. In that movie, actor Steven Berkoff leaned hammily into the character's sadism, while the script gave him multiple scenes opposite Rambo to create a real sense of animosity between the two characters. In this movie, French actor Marc de Jonge is stuck curling his lip while barking or snarling his every (very bad) line.  His total direct interaction with Rambo lasts less than thirty seconds, with exactly two lines exchanged over a radio. Amazingly, this rather pathetic bad guy role was originally offered to Marlon Brando! I'd actually have loved to see that.  The results might well have been bad, but they certainly wouldn't have been boring.

The movie's best scene - the only scene in which Stallone plays the character rather than himself.

THOUGHTS:

I'll start with the positive - much like the movie itself does.  Rambo III gets off to an excellent start.  The opening stick fight is a terrific set piece, well-shot and tightly edited. It's also the only scene in the movie in which I see not Sylvester Stallone, but instead the character of Rambo. At first, he's clearly losing, and that makes him angry. He uses that anger as fuel to somewhat brutally turn the tables. At the end of the fight, there's a moment in which he clearly has to hold himself back from finishing his opponent. The camera holds on his face for several seconds before he finally lowers his weapons. It's sharp, visceral filmmaking that raises hopes for the rest of the picture.

Apparently, first-time director Peter MacDonald shot this sequence personally using a handheld camera. Maybe he should have gone that route for the rest of the movie... because most of the film that follows is an indifferently helmed mess. TV-style close-ups are favored over wide shots, and action scenes often resort to fast edits rather than moments of genuine excitement.

It doesn't help that the action lacks any spatial awareness, failing to convey where people and weapons are in relation to each other. Even in the climactic "tank vs. helicopter" showdown, most of it plays out in either one-shots of either tank or helicopter or in close-ups of Rambo or Zaysen.  There are only a couple of shots that show both of them in the same frame, meaning that there's no sense of the two machines hurtling toward each other until all of a second before the crash.  This undercuts the tension and eviscerates the excitement.

Even Jerry Goldsmith's music isn't as good as in previous films. In my review of the second film, I observed that the movie was carried as much by the score as by the actors. This time, much of the music is just a remix of cues from the first two films. What new music is used is mostly generic. I can only figure that Goldsmith looked at the film and decided that if no one else was going to put in an effort, then neither was he.

Rambo runs from an exploding helicopter.

THE NOVELIZATION:

As was true of the second film, First Blood author David Morrell wrote the novelization.  When adapting the second movie, Morrell scaled back the cartoonish elements, developed the characters to a far greater degree, and restored Rambo's PTSD issues... but he still stuck closely to the basic structure.  The novel, Rambo: First Blood Part II, is far more in keeping with the tone of the original book and movie than the film is, but it remains recognizable as the same story; it's just a very different telling of that story.

The same cannot be said of Morrell's Rambo III novel, in which the author more or less ignores the movie he's supposedly adapting.  The base concept is the same: Rambo rescuing Trautman from Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.  Outside of that framework, however, it is a completely different story. Gone is the audience-pandering Afghan moppet.  Rambo is capable, but he's no superhero.  A UN doctor assists Rambo and fills in significant details about the larger occupation.  The Afghans are full individuals, and they are given substantially more agency than in the film. Parallels are drawn between the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and America's (and Rambo's) own war in Vietnam.

All told, it's a rather good book.  It might even make for a decent movie someday.


OVERALL:

Rambo III is every bit as dumb as the second film, but without the energy that kept its predecessor afloat. The characters are practically self-parodies; Richard Crenna even spoofed his role in Hot Shots! Part Deux, and did so by giving the exact same performance (occasionally, even delivering the same or similar dialogue).

As this was the last of the Rambo films that I watched back in the day, I'll have to hold off for two more reviews before declaring a "worst of the franchise." That said, I have difficulty believing that even the critically derided Rambo: Last Blood will manage to be worse than this.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

Previous Film: Rambo - First Blood, Part II
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Rambo: First Blood, Part II.

Rambo on the warpath.

Release Date: May 22, 1985. Running Time: 96 minutes. Screenplay: Sylvester Stallone, James Cameron. Producer: Buzz Feitshans. Director: George P. Cosmatos.


THE PLOT:

Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is well into his sentence for the events of the first film, doing hard labor in a prison work camp, when he receives a visitor: Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna). His old CO has a mission for him, with the possibility of a Presidential pardon at the end of it. The job? To go into Vietnam to scout a suspected POW camp, and to take photographs of any evidence of American prisoners.

The man in charge of the operation is Murdock (Charles Napier), a major who seems more concerned with politics than actual results. Rambo accepts the mission despite his distrust of Murdock, parachuting into Vietnam and meeting up with his contact, Co (Julia Nickson). She expects to find nothing but an empty camp. Instead, they discover several POWs, who are still being actively tortured by the Vietnamese army.

Though his orders are only to take pictures, Rambo can't make himself leave a prisoner to be tortured.  He rescues the man before fleeing to the extraction point. When Murdock learns that Rambo has "one of ours," however, he orders his men to abort the extraction - leaving Rambo at the mercy of an old enemy...

The men in charge: Murdock (Charles Napier) and Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna).

CHARACTERS:

Rambo: Somehow, all of Rambo's PTSD issues have vanished during his incarceration... because unlike the first film, this is basically a cartoon that has no room for psychological complexity. Still, even if Rambo has been flattened out to two dimensions, Stallone remains quite good, playing the character and not himself. Key to his success is his nonverbal acting. He absorbs what others say around him, but he says relatively little himself. I have seen some reviews comment on Rambo's sudden technophobia, but I actually think this is justified. I don't interpret his disdain as being for technology itself; he uses technology (helicopters, rocket launchers, exploding arrows) repeatedly. I think what he disdains is Murdock's belief that technology is a complete replacement for human ingenuity and training.

Col. Trautman: Richard Crenna continues to project authority and integrity. This is fortunate, because Trautman is more plot device than character. He springs Rambo for the mission, then expresses his outrage after Murdock abandons the extraction. Most of his scenes amount to either acting as the Voice of Moral Authority or as Rambo's Cheerleader, and many of his bits honestly could have been cut without being missed.

Murdock: A weasel, which actor Charles Napier makes evident in body language and attitude from his very first scene. His dismissiveness toward Rambo in the early scenes recalls Sheriff Teasle's reactions at the start of First Blood - but even Teasle would hold Murdock in contempt. He's an obvious bureaucrat who can't even fully handle the climate of Thailand from the inside of a base (that, given all the computer equipment, has to be air conditioned). In case we've missed that we're supposed to hate him, the script has him stake a claim to having been involved in a military operation in 1966... which Rambo privately tells Trautman has to be a lie, since the company he claimed to be with was actually somewhere else entirely.

Lt. Col. Sergie T. Podovsky: This being the mid-'80s, the movie has to bring in the Russians as the real villains, as personified by perpetual '80s movie bad guy Steven Berkoff. Save for adopting a cod Russian accent, there's no daylight between Podovsky and Berkoff's Beverly Hills Cop baddie Victor Maitland. If you told me this character was Maitland pretending to be Russian for the sake of illegal drug smuggling operations, I would entirely believe you. Still, Berkoff is well cast, his cold sadism a contrast to Rambo's anger.

Co Phuong Bao: Julia Nickson, a television mainstay in the '80s and '90s, is a bit too gorgeous; I doubt most covert missions in the jungle include access to a full cosmetics kit, and backing off on the makeup for most of the film would have made for a stronger contrast when she does make herself up as a prostitute to infiltrate the camp. Still, credit to this very '80s film for providing Rambo with a non-white female partner who is shown to be smart, resourceful, and loyal. Less credit goes to the attempt to shoehorn in a romance. The two actors are fine as partners, but they have zero romantic chemistry, and the scene-and-a-half creating the "love story" boasts by far the worst writing in the picture.

Rambo and Co (Julia Nickson), watching the POW camp.

DUMBER THAN IT NEEDED TO BE...:

Rambo: First Blood, Part II won the Golden Raspberry Award as 1985's Worst Picture. I can only think that Sylvester Stallone must have done something to personally offend the Razzie voters, because there is no way that this could be seriously considered to be the worst film of any year - but I will admit that it's dumb. Dumber, in fact, than it needed to be.

The first draft, by James Cameron, had the same basic story and action beats, but it also retained references to Rambo's PTSD and took time to characterize some of the Vietnamese soldiers. When author David Morrell wrote his (excellent) novelization, he referred to the Cameron script as "a gold bar" and estimated that his book version was equal parts Cameron script, Stallone script, and his own original material. Meanwhile, Cameron himself was appalled by the final film, and made sure to never again write a script where he lacked any control over the final result (though after the back-to-back successes of The Terminator and Aliens, that likely didn't require him to take much of a stand).

Possibly the stupidest moment is the mid-film plot twist, that sees Murdock ordering his men to abandon Rambo's extraction. This was witnessed and recorded, and it would certainly have leaked to the press.  A few scenes later, we later learn that Podovsky intercepted and recorded the conversation... meaning that if all else failed, the Soviets would have leaked it to make the U. S. look bad.  The resulting PR nightmare would have been far worse than Murdock's angry speculation to Trautman about veterans going on the news wanting "to start the war all over again"... and while Murdock may be a weasel, he doesn't come across as moronic enough to not realize this.

Heck, given the excitement of the military men when they hear that Rambo has rescued a live POW, Trautman returning empty-handed would certainly be noted. When Trautman is later placed under house arrest, this combined with the fact that the colonel outranks Murdock leaves me suspecting Rambo might just return to find Murdock and his henchmen in confinement.

The movie is highly inconsistent in its portrayal of the POWs and their condition. We first see them looking half-dead, with rats and spiders crawling around in their cage and even on them. When Rambo rescues one, he has to carry the man because he can barely walk. At the climax, however, these same POWs are suddenly combat-ready. Not only do they know how to use high-grade military equipment despite having spent more than ten years in cages - They still have the upper body strength to aim and fire heavy machine guns effectively. 1983's Uncommon Valor (directed by First Blood's Ted Kotcheff) handled a similar POW rescue more believably, showing POWs who were incapacitated and, in some cases no longer English-fluent. Then again, Uncommon Valor at least tried to be a real movie, while Rambo: First Blood, Part II is a live action cartoon.

This makes no sense at all if you stop to think about it...
but, like most of the film's action, it sure is fun to watch.

...BUT IT'S A WHOLE LOT OF FUN:

Still... that very cartoonishness is this film's salvation. This is comic book pulp, with an invincible hero squaring off against a hissing villain and a spineless bureaucrat. If the first film was carried by the performances of Stallone and Brian Dennehy, then the second film is carried by skillful editing and by Jerry Goldsmith's score, which is finely calculated to get your adrenaline going.  This is super-dumb and over-the-top, with the last thirty minutes amounting to an extended action piece... but it's canny enough to embrace those qualities, which makes it highly watchable.

The final thirty minutes boasts some fantastic action scenes. Yes, Rambo's one-man-army act doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny; for some of his attacks to work, he has to know exactly where his enemies are going to be before they get there, with no advance scouting time. But if you care about such things, you're already watching the wrong movie. You get Rambo attacking from under the mud, Rambo blowing up people and buildings alike with exploding arrows, Rambo commandeering a helicopter to fly the POWs to safety, and a well-directed helicopter standoff between him and Podovsky. All backed by Jerry Goldsmith's terrific score.  

Col. Podovsky (Steven Berkoff) - an old-fashioned, hissing villain.

OVERALL:

If there's any doubt that the Razzies had it in for Stallone, note that the equally idiotic-but-enjoyable Rocky IV also was nominated for Worst Picture, despite it also being a tremendous popular success. The Razzie voters should have held their fire; it wasn't too many years later before Stallone started turning out some actual bad movies, rather than this well-turned popcorn fun that just happened to be incredibly stupid.

If you're in the mood for culture, then I understand that Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth is excellent, and I genuinely look forward to watching it. But if you're in the mood for some mindless action, then Rambo: First Blood, Part II fits the bill just fine.

Break out the popcorn and beer, turn your brain off, and enjoy the 'splosions. If you feel a twinge of guilt, just remind yourself that this isn't any dumber than your average Michael Bay flick - and at a brisk 96 minutes, it's a heck of a lot shorter.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Film: First Blood
Next Film: Rambo III

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First Blood.

Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) pushes the wrong man just a little too hard...

Release Date: Oct. 22, 1982. Running Time: 93 minutes. Screenplay: Michael Kozoll, William Sackheim, Sylvester Stallone. Based on the novel by: David Morrell. Producer: Buzz Feitshans. Director: Ted Kotcheff.


Introducing John Rambo. The guy who walks around with enough firepower to blow up a small country, and who takes out entire armies with his bare hands. The figurehead for cheesy '80s action.

But it didn't start out that way...


THE PLOT:

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) doesn't want any trouble. He came to Hope, Washington to reconnect with an old war buddy. After he learns that his friend has died from cancer caused by exposure to Agent Orange, all he wants is to get a bite to eat and move on.

Enter Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy). He prides himself on keeping his town free of drifters, on keeping thing "boring... the way we like it." When he spots Rambo - an obvious vagrant - he drives him to the other side of town, urging him to move on immediately. But Rambo is already upset by his friend's death, making this the exact wrong day to antagonize him. The instant the sheriff lets him out of the car, Rambo turns around and starts walking back into town.

Teasle arrests him on the spot and takes him back to the station, where a group of deputies takes his order to clean Rambo up as license for abuse.  Flashing back to past torture at the hands of the Vietcong, Rambo lashes out at his captors. He escapes with ease - but kills one deputy in the process.

Then full information on Rambo comes back. He's not only a veteran, he's a Green Beret who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was trained "to kill, period!" And now his sights are firmly set on Teasle...

Teasle clashes with Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna), Rambo's former CO.

CHARACTERS:

Rambo: Sylvester Stallone's performance is startlingly good.  In the very first scene, when Rambo goes to the home of his old friend, he's clearly nervous.  He tries to chat lightheartedly with his friend's wife, but he sounds uncomfortable with the sound of his own voice as he fumbles through his wallet to find a picture of him with the man. After she reveals that her husband is dead, Rambo looks as if he's been slapped. He gives the photo to the widow and leaves with barely a word. Stallone's acting is letter-perfect, and that carries through the entire movie.  I was particularly impressed by his nonverbal work, from his sullenness at the police station to the way he lashes out in fury at the end - as much against a society that's abandoned him as against Teasle himself.

Sheriff Will Teasle: The movie would not work if Rambo didn't have an opponent worthy of his anger. Brian Dennehy's Teasle is as much at the movie's center as Rambo himself.  He is almost Rambo's opposite. Rambo barely speaks; Teasle talks a lot. Rambo is uncomfortable around other people; Teasle is a grandstander, casually interacting with townspeople while making sure that he's always the dominant figure. When Rambo ignores his authority by heading back into town, that defiance is a trigger. Teasle has several opportunities to stop the situation from turning into a disaster, and plenty of warnings about what might happen. But he's too angry, too stubborn, too prideful to allow any challenge, and the entire town pays the price.

Col. Trautman: Richard Crenna was a last-minute addition to the cast, after the originally attached Kirk Douglas left the production over creative differences. Crenna reportedly had to be fed his lines on his first day, because there had been no opportunity for him to learn the script. Give credit to the old pro: There isn't a sign of this in his performance. I do have a few issues with some of Trautman's dialogue, with most of his lines seeming a little too "trailer-ready" for my tastes.  However, Crenna does well at projecting the colonel's authority even as he mostly is left to watch from the sidelines, his efforts to defuse the situation consistently rebuffed by Rambo and Teasle alike.

Rambo faces abuse at the hands of the local police.

THOUGHTS:

First Blood is just about the least likely movie to spawn a big, dumb action franchise. It isn't particularly big.  There are only three real set pieces, and they mostly don't play out in a way designed to get audiences cheering. A scene in which Rambo incapacitates Teasle's posse is downright disturbing, with the scene playing out from the deputies' viewpoint and Rambo feeling like an almost supernatural boogeyman.

It also is surprisingly substantial. Rambo and Teasle are in many ways reflections of each other. Both are veterans (unless you look fast at Teasle's desk, you're likely to miss that in the movie; in the book, Korean War veteran Teasle is resentful of the attention paid to Vietnam veterans). Both are stubborn men, and their refusal to give creates the incident. Trautman offers solutions that might defuse the situation, but Teasle refuses to accept any advice, no matter how out of control the situation spins.

Rambo also, as Trautman observes, does "everything to make this private war happen." He's the one who, at knife point, tells Teasle to "let it go." But he's every bit as unwilling to do so as the sheriff. He's not wrong when he says, "There wouldn't be any trouble if not for that... cop."  When Trautman attempts to get him to surrender, though, he just sullenly replies: "They drew first blood, not me."

Reportedly, the initial edit of the movie came in at more than three hours. If this is true, then tremendous credit goes to the editors.  The 93-minute final cut is tight and spare, with barely an ounce of fat on it. The first 25 minutes is a masterpiece of economical storytelling. The major characters are introduced, with their personalities revealed entirely naturally through their interactions, and then the plot is put into motion with Rambo's arrest, mistreatment, and escape. By the time Rambo is fleeing up a mountain with Teasle standing at the base, screaming up, "You've gone as far as you're gonna go!", everything has been put in place for the film that follows.

Rambo unleashes his rage... on fuse boxes and empty buildings.

CHARACTERS AND ACTION SET PIECES:

I've long felt that Ted Kotcheff has been overlooked as a fine director. His 1970s and '80s film work include such varied titles as: Fun with Dick and Jane, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, North Dallas Forty, and Uncommon Valor (of which Rambo: First Blood Part II is practically an uncredited - much dumber - remake).  In all these films, he demonstrated a consistent ability to deliver comedic or action set pieces without losing sight of his characters. His helming of First Blood reflects this strength.

The action scenes are well-mounted. Rambo's initial escape is exciting, with Jerry Goldsmith's excellent score kicking in as he steals a motorcycle and heads out of town. There's real tension when he's pinned down by the sadistic Deputy Galt, and an effective near-horror movie atmosphere when he ambushes the deputies. Later, a scene involving inept National Guard members is played for laughs - and yet this comedy confrontation comes closer to killing Rambo than anything else in the film!

The ending set piece is different, focused squarely on Rambo as a character. His anger has taken over by this point. Armed with weapons stolen from the National Guard, he lets loose. But it's not so much a confrontation as an expression of rage. The people have already cleared out, and he blows up ammunition from a gun shop to draw the police away. What he unleashes his anger on are electrical boxes and empty buildings. The only other person in this sequence is Teasle, but he isn't engaging Rambo. He just observes from the police station roof, appalled by the destruction and likely realizing how much his pride has cost (refreshingly, this last is not spelled out). He and Rambo aren't even in the same room until the final moments.

"Nothing is over!" Rambo refuses to stand down.

OVERALL:

It is difficult to reconcile First Blood with the franchise it spawned. The action scenes are well-realized; but much more than the action, the story is propelled by the two main characters and their contest of wills. The acting is good across the board, with Stallone and Dennehy both outstanding.

For viewers wary of the "Rambo" franchise... Well, you're not wrong about many of the films that followed. But First Blood is a genuinely good movie, one that remains well worth seeing.  Within its genre, I don't think it could have been much better, hence...


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Next Film: Rambo - First Blood, Part II

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Random Musings: Rambo

First Blood

Release Date: Oct. 22, 1982

Rambo: First Blood, Part II

Release Date: May 22, 1985

Rambo III

Release Date: May 25, 1988

Rambo

Release Date: Jan. 25, 2008

Rambo: Last Blood

Release Date: Sept. 20, 2019

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