Rambo

There are not many persons in the mainstream motion picture frontlines whom were part of the business and kept themselves so composed as long as Sylvester Stallone has and did. He has been around quite a while for now, and have built a massive body of popculture presence which is almost completely free of dark spots that fans and the Sly Thing - or Oscar, or a trigger happy Mom - would probably prefer to regard as forgotten. The two leading characters of whom pretty much everybody is as "unconsciously" aware of as of the presence of oxygen and associates to Sly with a degree of naturalism that comes with the blinking of the eyes, are of course the Rocky Balboa and John Rambo phenomenas. Significant popcultural imprints whom weight and authenticity clearly built and rest upon Stallone's considerate charisma and still supersolid canvas presence.

As of today, the Sly Thing seems to be on an upgrade-urge trail concerning his very own heritages, giving fresh, brand new shots to the characters that reigned upon the popculture of the '80s like the Cold War atmosphere reigned on the era in question. Only that this was keener to soak into. This here fresh addition to the Rambo saga seems to conform on pretty much every aspect to the qualities of the recent Rocky updatevariant: the inherent content is rather scarce, yet the main anticipation we are likely to pose toward these updates is to see Sly kicking asses as Rocky or Rambo again, anyway. Of this: you gonna have plenty. You see, as Sly told, and now confirms: heroes never retire. They. Just. Reload.

Burma. This is a period of revolt. Rambo now lives and tries to forget in Thailand, spending most of his time with forging steel and probably dimming some of the experiences he had during the first three Rambo installments. Some people are always ready to help though, even if the help is unwanted or unasked for. A group of missionaries are trying to reach the violence torn villages of the region to spread hope and offer medicines, though they are having considerate difficulties to navigate through the jungle and the river to get there. Sure they have heard of Rambo however, and sure they do ask for his help to transport them to the target territory.

Rambo is unwilling to do that, stating that no matter what - these aspirations of the missionaries wouldn't change a thing in the long run. An extralight philosophical confrontation provoked by the female representative of the missionaries proves to be 'nuff to cause Rambo to reconsider though, - maybe it was because of the rain, by the way - and so they pack stuff up, heading to the target region on Rambo's boat the very next day.

The synopsis from here on is simple and effective enough to fill in that remaining, classic 60 minutes with all the stuff you probably have signed on for here. The village the missionaries are left at to spread their belief quickly becomes ambushed in extremely violent fashion, the next thing Rambo hears of is from a government (?) representative, asking the Bandana Monster to transport a pack of mercenaries to the area, a group of experienced jungle hired guns to rescue the missionaries.



From here on, little time is left to go down prior to Rambo's relentless emergence in the company of his trusty bow, consecutively delivering the particular oneliner which probably served as the most important moral element to be included in this installment. What we get from this point on is a simple, though coherent action buildup with slight, somewhat shallow hints and moments of suspense, given that Rambo and the mercenaries are to invade a whole military camp with a determination of the lowest casualty ratings to attain. The script fortunately offers that indispensable rate of cunningness factor to separate Rambo from the mercs at a particular point, thereby streaming events from two different perspectives, and the Bandana Monster has his chance for some nice solo punishment, as well.

The fabric of the story, and concluding events the film boil down to offer no surprises or particular peek moments, it seems safe to say that the latest installment in the Rambo series weights in around the usual qualities of any stock-commando flick we have chance to witness endlessly if we are willing to do so. The two aspects to differentiate Rambo from it's zillion jungle shootout counterparts are Stallone and the degree of graphic violence it is not afraid to show. Yes, violence is presented probably factually, notice the sketch where Sly rips a jeep's driver off via the vehicle's mounted turret, also I totally luved the sniper shots, it was nice to finally see not just the excessive organic deconstruction caused by the projectiles, but the brutal momentum the bullets travel with, carrying targets meters away from their original position.

Some claim scenes in which military persons are terrorizing village inhabitants to crave effect for themselves, well, I really can't agree on this point - though personally I have never been to a war, but had chance to witness the surface of it's nature via archive footages and photos, and everyone who had this chance would probably agree with me that Rambo shows rampant violence's face without the usual masks that filmmakers tend to put on it. This is the sorrowful, eternally uncompassionate level of violence that war notorious of summoning, reigning beyond shock and moral values - in the horror of war, taking a life probably implies that you are waging it effectively, and the mere operation of this horrid philosophy is depicted and emphasized firmly, factually by the film.



To this day, Rambo - First Blood is the only "serious" Rambo film, a work of blatantly authentic driving factors and a masterful buildup to outline the mere genre of the hunter and hunted entertainment approach. The consecutive episodes did not do much but delivered action calculability, relying on a character that was a definite safe bet to sell out those flicks and action figures with. The new installment eventually fails to make an action statement you are to evidently relate to, and satisfies by it's - sorry for that - decently done, excessive computer graphic violence.

At particular moments, Stallone, who also is director of the movie chooses to mix the images of war with fluent, sorrowful music, in my opinion, this act degrades the output tremendously. I can relate to horrors without telling me on audible channels how horrid they are indeed, thank you. Apart from this bizarre, though quite sorrowful appeal of decently and thoroughly presented violence, Rambo eventually fails to come up with a memorable message or the evident qualities of a war film excellence, nevertheless it seems to reach a final, though bittersweet conclusion of how life should, and will continue on. Do that again, Sly, definitely. As something is going on here for sure, but not quite the real thing yet.

And now, for the Quite Crappy Rambo Joke you might enjoy:

Maurice is being picked upon by his classmates because of his long hair and bandana, they are calling him "Rambo". He gets upset one day by this and decides to complain about it to his dad. The father becomes quite angry, and assures Maurice that he will take care of it. The little kid suddenly regains his composure, puts his bandana on and speaks calmly, with fire in his eyes:

Leave it, dad. This is MY war!




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