First Blood-ier

I have seen First Blood. While not a favorite film, I think it is a good film, in spite of a somewhat embarrassing ending where a sobbing Stallone makes sure that if you missed it, the movie was about our mistreatment of Viet Nam vets. It wasn’t that subtle in the first place, and that was like a sledge hammer. Thanks, Sly. But I had not seen the follow ups to First Blood. So I added them to my Netflix queue (along with the latest Rambo).

Spoilers follow…

Simply put, I think First Blood part II is step two in Stallone’s step in becoming a cartoon parody of himself, after Rocky III(although, it may be step three if we include Rhinestone with Dolly Parton). After this he went on to things like Cobra, Over the Top and Rambo III. What’s my problem with Rambo, First Blood Part II? It seems like it should work. The script was by Stallone and James Cameron. That right there sounds good, I mean, Cameron was mere months from his classic Aliens. It’s directed by George Cosmatos…you know, the guy who directed the modern classic western Tombstone?! Okay, sure, he also directed the under water sci-fi flick Leviathan starring Peter Weller. And this was about eight years before Tombstone.

The film’s main crime is it takes a tragic character and makes him into a super hero. I should have known that “nuance” (as it was in the previous film) was completely out the window with the delivery in the first three minutes of Stallone’s line…”Sir…do we get to win this time?” The basic plot is that Rambo is in prison for crimes committed in the first film. As I said, the character in the original film is tragic. He’s a forgotten and tormented vet who escaped from a Viet Cong prison camp. He has lost faith in his country and has lost all his friends to the ravages of time and disease.

Now he is brought out of prison for a mission by Col Trautman (Richard Crenna, reprising his role as the compassionate military man, looking to right the wrongs against Rambo). At first, John Rambo believes he
is going in to North Vietnam to free POWs. He soon discovers that he is merely recon. While John is clearly disappointed, he promises Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier) to not engage the enemy. Oh, poor, poor John Rambo…it can’t be that easy.

Dropped into Thailand, Rambo meets up with his contact, an attractive young woman named Co Bao. It turns out that they (the American Government) does not think Rambo is going to find anything-and if Rambo gets caught, they plan to say, “Huh? We don’t know what he was doing there!” Co helps him initially set free some POWs. This leads to a major fire fight, where we discover Rambo cannot be shot, due to blessings from God or being a mutant I suppose. Of course, the Government screws Rambo telling a helicopter to abort the mission two feet from Rambo’s outstretched hand leaving him high and dry. That’s the government for you. Barack Obama will change all that.

This being the cold war period, a Russian military team stops by in a helicopter. They torture him a bunch, then Co slips in dressed as a prostitute and helps John get away. This leads to a quiet moment, where Co and Rambo share a kiss, and she asks him to take her to America. Rambo is a good hearted man and promises to do just that. This is what passes for romance in the film-two seconds before Co is shot to death. Rambo sure lucked out there, huh? She was already getting to clingy with that whole “take me to America” thing. This of course, sets Rambo off on a gung ho battle with Russian and North Vietnamese armies, taking them out. Thank God he cannot be shot. Not even a flesh wound.

Did you ever see UHF? The scene where Weird Al is dressed as Rambo to save a pre-racist breakdown Michael Richards? I always assumed it was exaggerated…but it is pretty much shot for shot. And his goal is to get back to that bastard Murdock and kill him. This involves flying a helicopter head long into the base camp and shooting an entire string a large bullets into an empty hangar and then scaring Murdock into wetting his pants with a big ass knife…kind of like Crocodile Dundee’s. But he doesn’t kill the bureaucrat. That’s not truly his style…to kill fellow Americans.

And then it gets bad. Like horribly schmaltzy. Trautman begs Rambo to not hate his country. Rambo retorts that he would die for his country. The Col is exasperated and asks what Rambo wants then. Rambo says, in all earnestness, “I want, what they want, and every other guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had, wants! For our country to love us as much as we love it! That’s what I want!”

You get that? It’s a message movie. Don’t misunderstand me, I think the way we treated soldiers returning from Vietnam was abysmal. The Peace movement of that time owes them a real apology for being assholes. Being for a just cause does not give an okay to being an asshole about it. And the Government did not do a good job of helping Vietnam vets either. But the film is just not good at delivering the message. Subtlety counts. And to top it off? The credits scroll as Frank Stallone sings a trite power ballad called Peace In Our Life.

The film is over the top action, setting Rambo up as more than just the skilled fighter he was in the first film, to status of a demi-god. Other than getting winded, he suffers little physical stress, and is able to appear to be in…like eighty places simultaneously. The film fails in a lot of ways, but really stands out as it started the template for Stallone’s future actioners. As he is getting older, it is interesting to note a certain ambivalence towards this role. Rocky Balboa was more thoughtful, and a close return to his early career (i.e., Rocky). I am intrigued to see if 2008’s Rambo is more cartoon, or a closer return to the original John Rambo of First Blood.

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