Movie Review: First Blood

Starring:
Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy, Chris Mulkey, David Caruso

Director:
Ted Kotcheff (Weekend at Bernie’s, Law & Order: SVU)

Synopsis:
John J. Rambo, a mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran, gets harassed by a small town police Sheriff and is forced to start a one man war with the whole town.

My Two Cents:
It’s been 25 years since First Blood was released and I watched it for the first time 2 days ago. I really wasn’t expecting much because I always thought Rambo was about brainless action and gratuitous violence at the hands of a bloodthirsty soldier, but I was wrong.

Trying to make his way in life after surviving the horrors of war is not an easy feat to accomplish, as we can see from Rambo’s depression. Once a war hero, he now drifts aimlessly around the country. He has no family and all his friends were either killed in Vietnam or died from cancer for being exposed to Agent Orange. He has no job, no direction, no purpose.

While drifting through a small town he comes across the town’s Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) who suspects Rambo is a stinky bum, or maybe even a criminal. He wants Rambo out of his town so he offers him to give him a lift but instead takes him as far away from the town as possible. Rambo waits for the car to turn around and immediately starts walking toward the town like nothing had happened. Sheriff Teasle is so pissed he decides to arrest him. He finds a large survival knife on Rambo and takes him straight to the police station to spend the night and face a judge the next morning. The police officers have a field day with Rambo, hassling, hitting, and hosing him down. Their fun ends, however, when one officer holds him from behind while another attempts to shave him with an old-school big-ass blade. This takes Rambo right back to Vietnam, where he had been captured and horribly tortures with a machete. He snaps and starts bringing down the hurt on the officers, easily and quickly beating the shit out of them, including Sheriff Teasle who had just arrived at the station. Rambo escapes the police and runs into a forest to hide. This is bad news for the Sheriff, who is now even more pissed than before and is out to hunt him down. Why bad news? Because Rambo is at home in the jungle. He sets booby traps everywhere and one by one he takes the officers down, but spares their lives.



News of the insane bum gets out fast and soon there are hundreds of National Guards and State Police officers combing the forest. At this point the Pentagon sends in Colonel Trautman, the man who trained Rambo to be the killing machine that he is, to try and make him surrender. Unfortunately, Rambo was never trained to surrender.

I don’t remember a simpler plot to a movie. It’s all about a crazy ex-soldier hiding in a forest while the police try to kill him. No plot twists, no surprises, only survival. And it’s OK, because I enjoyed every minute of it. It’s fun to see Stallone go all Snake Eater, stealing weapons from fallen police officers, hunting and killing warthogs for food, placing booby traps and hiding behind trees waiting for some poor bastard weekend warrior to walk near him and then beat the shit out of him. One of the best parts of the film is when Rambo finally breaks down in front of Trautman, telling him some of the terrible things he has seen in his life as a soldier. It’s hard not to sympathize with him.

I’ll be definitely watching the sequels and get ready for the fourth film early next year. Till then, keep your oversized knife sharp and your M60 fully loaded.

Score: