Movie Review: Rambo

I’ll admit I had my doubts when I heard that there was going to be another Rambo movie so long after the third one. And this was just after Sylvester Stallone did a new Rocky movie, which did rather well at the box office. But after seeing Bruce Willis bring back John McLane for another Die Hard movie and hearing that Harrison Ford was gearing up to do Indiana Jones once more, and hearing good things about this one, I decided to give Rambo a try.

I’m glad I did. This is definitely one of the best action flicks I’ve seen in a long time. Why? Because it’s probably the most realistic action flick I’ve seen in a long time. And not just with action, but with the way the characters are portrayed in a way you’d never expect from a “traditional” action film.

The film, which is the fourth in the series despite not having a number after its name (it was originally going to be called “John Rambo”, but director/star Stallone decided against it, to avoid comparison to the recent Rocky Balboa), starts with Vietnam veteran John Rambo still living in Thailand, working as a snake wrangler and charting out his boat. A group of missionaries approach him, wanting to hire him to take them into Burma so they can provide humanitarian aide.

Knowing that Burma is a war zone with the Burmese army terrorizing local villages and fighting with the local rebels, Rambo refuses. He eventually gets talked into it by Sarah (played by Julie Benz of Buffy the Vampire and Angel fame), one of the more idealistic members of the group. When Rambo learns that the group has been captured by the Burmese army, he goes with a group of mercenaries to rescue them, bringing him back into conflict once again.

What makes this film so good is that, as I’ve mentioned, is very realistic and very true-to-the-world. It opens up with actual news footage of the conflict in Burma, so you know right off that it works with real world events. Many of the characters, particularly the Burmese army and the mercenaries, are portrayed very realistically, instead of traditional movie villains and rogues with ideals they think no one else understands.

There’s no fancy character names and no one’s spouting one-liners that fans will be quoting for ages to come (Rambo does spout a few memorable lines, but that’s more his character in this case than being an action hero). Rambo does use his trademark bow-and-arrow, but only for one scene and probably because that’s all he’s got, and save for a rather large gun used by the mercenaries’ sharp-shooter, all the weapons are the type that probably more likely to be used in combat situations.

There’s actually a bit of a theme here in realism versus idealism. You got Rambo, a realist in every sense of the way, having fought in Vietnam and later thrown into all sorts of world conflicts and battles in the previous movies. He knows what the world is like and that it’ll take more than fancy talk and dreams to change it. So this puts him at odds with the missionaries, who are confident they can change things and are shocked at the brutality Rambo uses in situations.

But at the same time, Rambo is affected by them, particularly Sarah, whose words about life outside of fighting get him thinking. This sparks one of the more interesting scenes in the film, a dream/flashback sequence containing clips from the previous films, particularly ones with Colonel Trautman (played by the late Richard Crenna, thus enabling the character to appear in the new film in some way), where he says Rambo needs closure in his life.

To warn those of the faint of heart, Rambo does have some of the most violent and bloody action sequences ever in an action movie. People are very visibly and graphically seen ripped apart by bullets and/or blown to pieces by explosions in very graphic detail. No one is spared, not even children.

Heck, during the Burmese army’s attack on the village where the missionaries are working, a child is actually thrown into a burning house by a soldier! While it’s hard to tell just how much of the gunfire and their results is exaggerated, it’s a safe bet that a lot of the other things that happen are very close to the actual goings-on in Burma, which makes it even more disturbing. And you thought horror movies were bad.

In any case, ultra-violence aside, Rambo is still a great film, probably the best in the series. And even you haven’t seen the first three, you can still enjoy this one with little trouble. It’s definitely worth checking out on the big screen.

Rating: 8 out of 10