Film directed by Ted Kotcheff
3 stars
I had my first experience with a film from the Rambo franchise while staying at a Holiday Inn in Inverness. The trip was half business (= I was a little stressed) and half leisure (= RLB was with me). Instead of going out for the evening, we ordered food to the hotel and watched a film in bed. It was just what happened to be playing on TV that night.
I liked the intensity of the relationships in what seemed like an over-the-top, but nonetheless sincere, portrayal of a man struggling to re-identify himself as a father; a husband; a mentor, instead of as a fighter.
It was when RLB and I settled down more recently to watch First Blood that I realised what we had been watching in Inverness that evening, with Chinese take-out on our laps, was Rocky 5. Reader: it turns out Rambo is a whole other thing.
I liked it fine enough, but it wasn’t really my thing.
The only characters with speaking lines are white men, with one INCREDIBLY BRIEF exception: a family member of the special forces soldier who our protagonist, John Rambo, is looking for. We learn that the soldier and Rambo served in Vietnam together while Rambo talks at this unresponsive woman. Eventually she lets him know his friend has died, or disappeared, I’ve genuinely forgotten: the takeaway is basically that Rambo came all this way to see the one remaining soldier from his troop that he thought was still kicking, and finds he is not. Rambo is sad.
I could not find this woman listed in the credits. Here is the IMBD credits page which only lists one female character (named “woman on street”; there are three “man on street”s) who, as far as I can tell, is not this family member. What?
Leaving the one woman of the film, and her one line, behind, Rambo:
- Wanders into the nearest town
- Is arrested for vagrancy by what the audience recognises as a bad cop
- Is mistreated at the police station, triggering flashbacks to torture he endured in Vietnam
- Goes, reflexively, into fight mode
- Retrieves his big ass knife
- Escapes the police station and flees to a nearby forest
The rest of the film is a man hunt. Rambo just wants to be left alone (he ain’t looking for trouble!) but with the pride of the police force wounded, they go to excessive trouble to hunt him down for the crime of… vagrancy. We are very much on Rambo’s side.
The film has a good supply of trailer worthy quotes:
Chief of police: Are you telling me that 200 men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?
Rambo’s old special forces colonel: You send that many, don’t forget one thing [suitably long pause before hitting us all with the good stuff] … a good supply of body bags.
The script leans pretty heavily on these one liners, with most things being “said” with action rather than dialogue. For example, Rambo maims the first half dozen officers to come after him, and it’s only when faced with a kill-or-be-killed situation that he “kills”. He throws a stone at someone who is shooting at him from a helicopter, and the guy falls out the chopper and dies. We all nod to say fair enough.
When Rambo does talk, mainly during an emotional monologue at the end of the film, I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. Which was a shame because I suspect it might have been the most important part of the movie. He’s evaded captured on multiple fronts (and we’ve fitted in multiple explosions) but Rambo is finally face to face with his father-figure special forces captain guy, and he breaks down.
Though the allegory was present throughout the film, I think this might have been the moment where they really spell out the fact that the American government/army has chewed this guy up, made him what he is, and spat him out. But, like I say, I couldn’t really hear the specifics.
I get why people love this film. The political message is powerful, Rambo is likeable, the action is dece. 3 stars!
