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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