In the leadup to the new Rambo movie, I’ve gone back and watched the three original films. Almost anyone I’ve told this to thinks it’s an entirely ironic exercise. Yeah - I’m not saying it’s not. But it’s not solely that. I grew up with Rambo. Me and my best friend would suit up in our camouflage jackets, war paint daubed under our eyes, fake grenades strapped to our kiddie chests (bought in Chinatown - you could, probably still can, get anything there) and head up to Central Park to discover the days mission. The enemy was all around and, in fact, the enemy was often quite alarmed to spot two 9 year old mercenaries staking out positions on the rocky outcroppings behind them. At least once my mom had to intercede when a couple cops were alerted to our disconcerting presence.
Anyway, Rambo was big. So were Bruce Lee, GI Joe, He-Man, and the rest. But even at that age, you could tell Rambo was heavier. Watching the movies again, you can see why. In First Blood, Rambo, taught to be a Green Beret “killing machine” during Vietnam, comes home to a country that doesn’t know what to do with the haunted veterans of its unpopular war, and is offered a halfhearted shot at the kind of “normal life” it’s hard to ease back into after you’ve watched most of your friends die in front of your eyes. A small-town sheriff and his sadistic officers set Rambo off on a series of POW flashbacks, and soon enough he’s killing cops, stealing cars and bunkering down in a craggy forest down the road. There are a lot of explosions and the entire town is ultimately leveled, but First Blood is a film about Post Traumatic Stress, and a fairly effective one at that.
Yes - the series’ enduring popularity is based in simplistic (though fun) revenge fantasies. And as the sequels pile up, a dated Cold War angst sets in as the prime motivator for Rambo to continue kicking ass. And sure, the movies go quickly, shockingly downhill as production values go up - in an amazing Rambo III scene, a Russian baddie is hanged in a cave and blown to bits by his own grenade at the same instant. Truly a double-edged death for the ages.
What keeps the series (especially the second two, which are weaker than First Blood) from being totally one-dimensional (though, like I said, fun) is Stallone. He is the butt of many a good joke, but the guy is preternaturally adept at playing a particular kind of silent, sensitive, psychically tormented meathead. And Rambo is his excalibur: a savant-soldier that can survive indefinitely in the jungle whilst efficiently picking off those foolish enough to come looking for him, yet too wary to hold a conversation with anyone but the beloved Colonel who trained him.
Whether repairing a monastery in Thailand (between sequels Rambo is invariably doing something absurdly altruistic and monkish) or shooting exploding arrows at Russian helicopters in Afghanistan, John Rambo’s face is permanently set with a wounded, dear-in-the-headlights stare. He is homeless in the truest sense - he doesn’t fit in anywhere. The wider, material world is truly not his home. His million mile stare says: “I was trained to lead near-impossible, covert military missions in inhospitable climates and I’m not even sure I like that, don’t have a friend left in the world that wasn’t killed in Vietnam, can’t figure out how I ended up on a dusty mountaintop in Northeastern Afghanistan with a bowie knife in one hand and an automatic rifle in the other, am clearly clinically depressed, gave my soul to a defend a country that finds me repulsive, saw the one girl I’ve ever kissed moments later shot to death by North Vietnamese commies, and I’m rigorously ascetic and moral and cautious in a world rapidly losing interest in any of those traits, but when life gives you lemons you assassinate all the bad guys.” You gotta feel for Rambo. He is as haunted a character as Holden Caulfield.
Plus, explosions are badass.
March 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
Well after seeing the new film, and what a great film it is as well, if that is dying for something… then I am so going to live for nothing lol
Gary
(from edinburgh)
March 8th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
i have yet to see the new one, though perhaps that’s what we’ll do in amsterdam on our day off for some local color.
March 9th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Tis a fun way to spend a few hours. And does bring the series full circle.
Hope the tour continues to go well and your getting good responses. We (me and the wife) where just looking if there is anywhere we can see you guys again lol. Heaven hasnt been of her ipod since we got back from Manchester on Tuesday lol Great 5 shows
March 26th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Did you catch the new film?
November 6th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
hey gary
i did recently see rambo iv. it was meh. the fighting scenes were pretty amazing, though. the way the dark-red blood just poured out of these gaping, hilariously-acquired wounds… i can only hope that, were i to be slaughtered in a jungle outpost, it’d look that cinematic.