Film Review: Rambo

Wow.

No that is not the review. The wow is pertaining to the fact that i seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to post about. I could be posting about my new old computer or the fact that i just sorta finished another drawing but no. I am about to post about Rambo.

The worst thing about that wow is that Rambo wasn't nearly as cretinous as i expected. Yes there is an awful and i do mean awful amount of blood and no you will not be seeing any oscar caliber anything in here but it is - finally - a completely stripped down version of Rambo no frills and very little patriotic bombast.

Yeah we get this old hero wandering through the forests and jungles of Burma, but he isn't fighting a war on his own for a change. He does not single handedly defeat the evil empire and he is insistent (with precious few words) that everything he does and can do will have absolutely no effect on anything, ever. It's a suitably grim outlook on the burmese genocide and a reflection of a dim opinion of the human race in general.

So what do we have?

We have Rambo doing his best, and failing frankly, to defend a group of woefully idealistic american missionaries trying admirably to do their christian best in a situation way beyond them. We have a character who we have seen over and over again struggle against his own idealism only to finally give in completely to the inner demons of his own nature. We have a Rambo who is irredemably negative and almost nihilistic in the realization of who he is. And we have a disgustingly graphic version of genocide captured gratuitously on film, daring the spectator to turn away.

The movie simply does not believe in dialog. I would contend that had the script been better written there would have been no need at all for speaking and frankly that would have made it a better movie. It hinges entirely on what we already know of Rambo but what has taken four movies for him to figure out. That all he is and all he ever will be is a killer and the only real choice in it is who he kills for. In this simple realization there is a strange sort of mirroring of the Burmese military who have absolutely no regard for life whatsoever in this movie. I don't think this mirroring is intentional at all but it is there nonetheless. In one scene we have Rambo and cohorts slinking into the enemy camp to release the remnants of the mission who are being held prisoner in the midst of a drunken orgy that is an obvious mockery of morality of any kind. I found myself hoping that the whole camp would be wiped out under the capable hands of our intrepid reagan era hero. But no. He stays on task, rescues the missionaries - or whats left of them - and slinks off into the night without any comment on his own thoughts about what he's seen. We get the feeling that none of it suprises him anymore, that all of it is drearily familiar territory in much the same way that genocides and the horror of power washes over us daily without nearly as much notice or outrage as it should.

No. It is not a good movie. No it is not worth seeing. No it was not worth reviving the character for. But at least it takes itself in a different direction and retires itself with some dignity which it fights very very hard for and spills a revolting amount of blood to obtain.

Perfomances of note: Are you kidding?
Direction: Bloody and bloody detailed.
Writing: The less the better.
Anything else? A Silly recap of rambos life delivered in a montage (which sadly has become a parodic trademark of Sylvester Stallone) and a quick and painful recap of the history of Burma even though its completely unneccesary as if to say "we will show you this to justify what our hero is about to do to the burmese military."