Rambo

First of all, the 4^th Stallone Rambo film that came out earlier this year isn’t really called Rambo 4…its just Rambo (despite how an imdb.com search for “Rambo 4” yields this movie). You might be thinking “well damn, wasn’t the first one in the series called Rambo?” Nope– that would be First Blood. Then after that you have Rambo: First Blood part II…and the oddly ironic desert combat installment featuring the Taliban would be Rambo III. If this was more than you cared to know about the Rambo series you’re probably not alone. But we love details and also love Rambo, so we’re going to approach this review with a deep growling yell as if we ourselves were about to steer a tank into a Hind helicopter.

The film did moderately well, grossing a bit over $112MM internationally with a budget of $50MM. We thought this would be cool to review since it’s out on DVD and come on, it’s Rambo.

The story begins with choppy newsreels that establish the violence in Burma (a.k.a Myanmar) in a manner reminiscent of the intro to a zombie movie. So much so that you’re waiting for Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” to start up. But as bad as it looks, that a man (Stallone) will in fact come around, and kick everyone’s ass. This movie makes a good effort to bring the story of John Rambo out of the Cold War era and into the 21^st century....we guess. Its slightly more creative than Behind Enemy Lines 2: Axis of Evil.

Here’s the plot – a group of ignorant American church volunteers travel into war-torn Burma to help peacefully change things but get caught, resulting in their manager hiring a team of mercenaries, escorted by Stallone, to break them out of a POW camp. How is Rambo even involved? The nihilistic ex-green beret who spends his time as a boat captain and trapping snakes for cash gave them a ride up the river.

This flick mixes feelings of guilt, anger, relief and gruffly-delivered one-liners in a non-stop action packed 1.5hrs. This one is also pretty dark, bringing up the uncomfortable connotations of civil war in 3^rd world countries and the problems Americans face when they try to fix them (much like Tears of the Sun, Black Hawk Down or Blood Diamond). It’s also hard to miss the struggle to reconcile violence in a religious and humanitarian setting – the film beats you over the head with a rock (pun intended) but falls short of reaching a conclusion.

They must have also brought on a new gore guy for this movie, because its way more graphic and gruesome. In my mind I can hear Nathan Explosion grumbling “Brutal…”. People are essentialy meat sacks, and explode like the oozing zombies in Planet Terror. Add in a ton of guys, a boat vs. truck machine gun battle, a .50cal sniper rifle, a borderline rape scene and a knife kill, and you have a solid R rating. Rambo also holds the record in the Rambo franchise for the most kills, coming in at 262. Want some other ridiculously useless Rambo stats? Check out this link.

Also worthy of note – Stallone did a short Comcast spot explaining how this movie is about people in their most primitive state, morality, etc. which was interesting because none of those really come off clearly in the movie. Rambo was probably not intended for analysis, but if it makes it into a religious studies seminar out there let us know.

Questions we’re left with:

1) In what movie is the British SAS not badass?

2) Wouldn’t backseat gun turrets have a depression safety feature?

3) Our idea of a Stallone/Schwarzenegger combo for Rambo: Commando II = awesome? Thoughts?

p.s – Brace yourself for a Rambo V…hell yea, its in pre-production