Quick takes on the Rambo series

When some of my friends read that I’ve never seen a single Rambo film all the way through, I’m probably going to get some flack. I know these aren’t necessarily “great cinema,” but they are undoubtably popular. And after so many slow dramas and foreign films lately, I’m hankering for some mindless action.

So obviously I wrote the above intro before watching any of these. The first Rambo film, 1982’s First Blood, has plenty of action, but it is far from mindless. Honestly, I was surprised at how unexpectedly emotional it is. John Rambo is a Vietnam vet still struggling to find his way in a country where he oftentimes feels like an outsider. He’s homeless and wandering along the west coast when he goes through the tiny town of Hope, Washington. There, he runs afoul of the local sheriff, Will Teasle (the late great Brian Dennehy). Will is a good sheriff and loves his town and its people, but he has little sympathy for a man who fought in a war he didn’t believe in, and wants Rambo to skip out of town as fast as his legs can carry him. When Rambo resists, Will arrests him, and he and his boys treat him a bit rough at the police station. This treatment gives Rambo flashbacks to his torture at the hands of the Vietnamese during his capture there, and Rambo lashes out. He beats up a few officers on his way out the door, and they give chase, leading up into the woods outside of town. When one officer ends up dead (from Rambo purely defending himself), Will calls in the state police and the national guard to hunt Rambo down. Rambo has one defendant through this: his former military commander, Sam Trautman. Trautman tries to get Will to back off, telling him that Rambo was the best Green Beret they ever had, and that he will take a lot of men with him if he is pursued to the end. Will can’t let it go. Great action, but as I said, I lot more emotion than I was expecting too. John Rambo is a man trained to fight, and without that, he’s found little purpose in his life. In addition to those chasing him, he has to combat his inner demons if he’s ever going to find peace. ★★★★★

As a kid, I remember the jokes pointed at the sequel’s title, with the unwieldy name of Rambo: First Blood Part II. That aside, this film picks up shortly after the conclusion of the first. Having turned himself in, Rambo is serving jail time in a labor group when he is visiting by Trautman. Trautman has a new mission for him: a top-secret reconnaissance trip into Vietnam to look for proof of still-held American POW’s. All he is supposed to do is get pictures and get out, and let the higher-ups negotiate to get them freed. Of course, this is Rambo we are talking about, and a simple camera op is not what he is all about. He gets into the camp and does indeed find Americans being held and tortured, and escapes with one man. While being pursued, they are ready to get picked up by the escape helicopter when the team leader, a sniveling mercenary named Murdock, calls in to abort the mission, abandoning Rambo and his escapee to the Vietnam soldiers and their Russian backers. Murdock was hoping to not find evidence of American POW’s, so as to not ruffle feathers in the USA, and thinks it better to let them all be killed. Rambo isn’t going to go down so easy. This sequel has less emotional nuance but maybe even better action than the first. In true sequel fashion, they up the explosion and body count to insane levels, and even introduce a (short-lived) romance for Rambo. Check your plausibility levels at the door, and sit back and enjoy. ★★★★

Now we’re talking. Rambo III displays the kind of no-nonsense, no cerebrum needed type of action flick that I was looking forward to in this franchise. There’s no love interest, no emotional attachment, no higher-leveling thinking needed; Rambo is just here to kick ass. Trading the forests of Vietnam for the deserts of Afghanistan, Rambo goes in to rescue Trautman, who has been captured by Soviets while training Mujahideen resistance fighters during the Afghan War. The big bad Soviet commander is a sadist who loves torturing his prisoners, which makes him Rambo’s number one nemesis in this go-around. This movie received fairly poor reviews when it came out in 1988, and it isn’t as good as the two previous, but if you know what you are wanting when you go into it, it is pretty enjoyable. Yes, the ridiculous factor is up to level 10 now (a bad guy is hung and then his body explodes!), but if you don’t want a stupid action movie, then go watch something else. ★★★½

It took 20 years to make another film. The fourth film in the franchise takes the simple name Rambo, and was released in 2008. It finds John Rambo living back in Thailand, where he was at the onset of the previous movie. He hates war, and because that’s the only thing he’s ever been good at, he hates himself too. He lives a solitary life, alone, trafficking people up and down the river and capturing snakes for the locals for money. One day, he is approached by a group of missionaries who want transportation up the river into Burma, which has been going through a deadly civil war. Initially reluctant, Rambo eventually agrees. He sneaks them in under cover of darkness and returns back to Thailand. A week later, he learns of the capture of that group; the American church’s head pastor has hired a band of mercenaries to get into Burma and get them out. Rambo has little faith that they can do it, but he joins up. I think he was just looking for some meaning in his life again, but he goes and does what he does best. This is by far the most gruesome of the Rambo movies. It depicts war atrocities in Burma including killing of civilians, rape, torture, etc. And with modern day computer-aided enhancements, the gore level is kicked up to extreme levels. No real story here, no character development, but it is undoubtably exciting from start to finish, and its 90 minute runtime passed in an instant for me. ★★★★

Rambo: Last Blood is the last film made to date, just released in 2019. After returning to his family ranch in Arizona at the conclusion of the last film, Rambo has finally find a semblance of peace in his life. He cares for horses, and looks after Maria, an old friend, and her granddaughter Gabriela. Rambo has been Gabriela’s surrogate father figure for 10+ years, since her father abandoned her after the death of her mother. Now that she is getting ready to go to college, she wants to look up her birth father and find out why he left all those years ago. Against Rambo’s and her grandmother’s wishes, Gabriela drives south to Mexico and looks him up. He rebuffs her, as Rambo knew he would, but before Gabriela can return home, she is kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring. The next morning, Rambo puts two and two together, and heads south to find the girl. Initially beaten up by the sex traffickers, Rambo heals up and gets Gabriela out. A turn of events leads him to lure the head of the sex ring to his Arizona ranch, which Rambo has prepared Home Alone-style with deadly booby traps. Though I did like the development of Rambo’s character, the overall arc from where he started in the first film, I found this movie to be the weakest of the series. It devolves into a bloody war of attrition in the end, and doesn’t have the satisfying conclusion that the fourth Rambo film gave us. ★★½

• TV series currently watching: Dexter New Blood (miniseries)
• Book currently reading: Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr