Director:
Ted Kotcheff
93
minutes (15) 1982
Studio Canal 4K Ultra HD
Rating: 9/10
Review by Michael Marshall Smith
The
key thing you have to remember about First
Blood, the movie that introduced Rambo to the world, is that it came before
Rambo: First Blood II, and Rambo III. This may sound self-evident.
But, while the sequels could reasonably be described as pieces of jingoistic
crap, First Blood is a
honest-to-goodness proper movie, of a type which people seldom bother to make
any more.
John
Rambo is a drifter, a veteran of the war in Vietnam. On a search for surviving
members of his platoon - and after discovering that he’s the only one left - he
happens upon a small burg in the Oregon mountains, looking for a bite to eat.
The local sheriff feels it’s better that he keep moving on, and gives him a
lift out of town. Rambo decides that he’s had enough of being shoved around,
and walks the hell back into town. The cops push him just a little too hard,
and Rambo knocks heads together before escaping into the woods, with the
sheriff hard on his tail. Neither are bad men, and neither will back down. Both
are simply defending what they believe in - and hell follows after.
Had
it not been for the muddying effect of the vastly politically-incorrect
sequels, this movie would be remembered as one of the great action movies of
the early 1980s. Its take on Vietnam, while not perhaps utterly fashionable, is
low-key and not objectionable - providing, in the unreasoning conflict between
the two leads, as good a moral as any. The movie’s mythic beats - the hero
crossing water to return to the town he's been thrown out of; a transformative
time in the wilderness; and the wild man’s return to wreak revenge on the civilisation
which has ostracised him - all work brilliantly as a modern-day western.
No one
is ever likely to give Sly an Oscar, but in this part he’s perfect - working to
fill the role, not just going through the action-hero motions. It’s one of
Stallone’s best performances, with a simple facility that he didn't better
until Copland nearly 20 years later.
Brian Dennehy - long-since consigned to straight-to-disc fodder - is superb as
the small-town sheriff, and Richard Crenna turns in a clipped cameo as Rambo’s
former mentor and father-figure, who is finally forced to confront the war’s
legacy on the ordinary men caught up in it. Also look out for David Caruso - later
the star of NYPD Blue - as an
inexperienced deputy.
First Blood isn’t loaded with
special effects to be exhaustively cooed over, and a blow-by-blow commentary
from director Ted Kotcheff would have added nothing. This is an action movie of
the old school, and as such relies upon pace, storytelling and character rather
than CGI or self-indulgent anecdotery. The bottom line is that it’s Sly Stallone
running through the woods and blowing-up shit, back in the days when he was a
star on top of the world, and I don’t need an excuse to enjoy that kind of
thing. Sling it in your disc player, sit back, and let it rip.
Extras:
Rambo
Takes The 1980s - part 1
Making-of
featurette: Drawing First Blood
Alternate
endings, deleted scenes, trailers
How
To Become Rambo - part 1
The
Restoration
The
Real Nam
Forging
Heroes
Audio
commentary by actor Sylvester Stallone
Audio
commentary by screenwriter David Morell
Rambo: First Blood -
Part II
Cast:
Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, and Martin Kove
Director:
George P. Cosmatos
95
minutes (15) 1985
Studio Canal 4K Ultra HD
Rating: 6/10
Review by Stephen Lee
This
is the second film of this trilogy starring Sylvester Stallone, here wearing
his Rocky II body, well directed by
George Cosmatos, who has managed to catch all of the stallion’s muscle
definitions using a variety of well-staged action poses. Stallone, who
co-writes with James Cameron, follows Rambo’s adventure in First Blood, which was a far better movie using the same character,
and this sequel includes his C.O. played once more by Richard Crenna.
This
enjoyable yarn takes our all American hero with his Tarzan hair-style out of
prison and back to Vietnam for a mission to photograph POWs if he can find any.
Quickly losing his camera he decides instead to re-fight the war all by himself
with a comic-book style. Rambo: First
Blood II is about the veterans of the war who are lost, and trying to find
answers and some recognition as patriots. Stallone shows our hero used, abused
and deceived by both sides before returning to the cheers of some while
striking fear in others. Rambo makes a speech on behalf of all disgruntled ’Nam-vets
and walks off toward another sequel to the strains of ‘It’s a long road, when
you’re on your own.’ But is that all?
Well,
no, it’s not - I believe the film means more to the Yanks than any of us can
possibly imagine as we Brits just see it as another highly entertaining action
adventure. Back in 1985, when this was made, some Hollywood superstars (James Coburn,
William Shatner, Clint Eastward, and Robert Redford among them) reportedly
funded a mission to find American POWs. Did Rambo prick the conscience of a nation?
Watching the interviews in the special features section, it’s clear this was always
Stallone’s intention. My favourite moment in this adventure is when the hero camouflages
himself in a mud-wall, only to open his eyes to take out another bad guy.
Extras:
Rambo
Takes The 1980s - part 2
We
get to Win This Time
Action
in the Jungle
The
Last American POW
Sean
Baker - Fulfilling a Dream
Interview:
Sylvester Stallone
Interview:
Richard Crenna
Behind-the-scenes
Trailers
How
To Become Rambo - part 2
Director’s
commentary by George P. Cosmatos
Rambo III
Cast:
Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, and Kurtwood Smith
Director:
Peter MacDonald
101
minutes (18) 1988
Studio Canal 4K Ultra HD
Rating: 8/10
Review by Christopher Geary
Rambo’s
old commanding officer, and only friend, Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna),
finds him stick-fighting for pocket money whilst living in a monastery in
Bangkok. Unable to convince the ex-soldier to accompany him on a secret US
supply operation to war-torn Afghanistan, the luckless Trautman goes in, anyway,
and is promptly taken prisoner by a Soviet patrol. Naturally, when Rambo hears
of his friend’s capture, he embarks upon an apparently suicidal rescue mission.
In
the desert camps, fanatical Mujahedin warriors engage occupying Russian forces,
pitting untrained riflemen, ragged horse cavalry, and petrol bombs against
mortars, big tanks and air supremacy. The motley guerrilla resistance is
further hampered by spies in their midst, as enemy agents are everywhere under
the new communist regime. However, knowing that he’s on his way is not the same
thing as seeing him coming, and Rambo proves he’s just as stealthy as any Hong
Kong movie ninja, when he sneaks into a ramshackle yet strongly defended Soviet
fortress to free Trautman, who has been tortured, along with numerous rebel
POWs.
Director
Peter MacDonald did the helicopter stunts on Rambo: First Blood II. In this sequel he makes good use of the USSR’s
gigantic Hind-D (a heavily armed combat helicopter that’s big as a house), and
ably bridges the action and war genres with many absurdly dramatic scenes - such
as the one which shows our hero shooting down an attacking gunship with just his
trusty bow-and-arrow. Of course, this being a Stallone adventure, there’s
little understanding of the complex realities of Afghan culture and Asian
politics. Instead, what Rambo III
delivers is a rousing battle-fest, shot on raw locations in Israel and Arizona
by veteran stunt-supervisor Vic Armstrong, so it’s like an explosively modern
western epic, with a sky-high body-count that requires no thought whatsoever to
appreciate.
The
appeal of the Rambo trilogy remains
rooted in cowboy-movie traditions of the heroic loner, portrayed as the one man
who can make a difference in actioner situations where conventional wisdom,
rational thinking, or morality has failed to secure any solution. As John
Rambo, Stallone presents us with a practical superhero, only nominally an
ordinary guy, because he strives for something far greater. Like the costumed
Batman or Captain America, and perhaps even James Bond, Rambo is now
established as a classic hero and a brutally honest warrior against injustice
on the international stage.
Extras:
Rambo
Takes The 1980s - part 3
Full
Circle
A
Hero’s Journey
Rambo’s
Survival Hardware
Alternate
beginning, deleted scenes
Interview
with Sylvester Stallone
Afghanistan:
A Land In Crisis
Guts
And Glory
Behind-the-scenes
Trautman
& Rambo
How
To Become Rambo - part 3
Trailers
Director’s
commentary by Peter MacDonald
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