Rambo
Directed by Sylvester Stallone
Lionsgate, 2008
By David Hollands
Sylvester Stallone’s pushing at least a hundred by now. Yet for a senior citizen, he hasn’t lost any of his strength, courage, or machismo. Rocky Balboa demonstrated a fine end to the Rocky series, and surprisingly great writing and directing from Stallone. Rocky went out in style. You know what? John Rambo does too.
I should get the biggest flaws out of the way before I begin my waterfall of praise. The writing is pretty bad. Dialogue is forced, though to tell you the truth, it’s mostly the other characters’. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come off well because of some truly awful acting from the supporting players. Rambo remains safe from this though, mostly because he says very little (and the fact that he mumbles, so I hardly understood anything he said anyway).
Also, the running time’s pretty brief. Other Rambo adventures clocked in at about two hours, while this one delivers everything in ninety-five minutes. There’s lots of action, but character is shortchanged. For example, while it’s clear why Rambo chooses to once again don the bow and arrow and do some serious killing, the amount of screen time it takes him to come to that decision is hardly enough. I just didn’t believe it. Why is that important in this kind of action flick? Because it’s a message film, a movie that takes itself very seriously.
Now that that’s out of the way…
Rambo kicked so much ass! The story? Rambo leads a group of Christian missionaries into a Burmese village. On a mission of peace and thus without weapons, the missionaries are easily captured by Burmese soldiers. Long story short, Rambo proceeds to blow things up but good!
Violence has always been a staple of the Rambo series, though it has never been taken to this extreme. Bodies are eviscerated, shredded, blown up, crushed, disemboweled, and decapitated in the grisly, gory detail of a Monty Python sketch. Surprisingly, Stallone never makes this violence seem too sensationalistic. The violence conveys an admittedly simplistic message concerning the horrors of war and genocide, though one that is still pretty hard-hitting. The gore seems absolutely necessary – well, except in one instance. Stallone succumbs to having a head bad guy killed, when before there really was no main antagonist, simply soldiers. I really liked that small shift from convention, so I was a bit disappointed when an inevitable confrontation occurred with the usual swell of patriotic music.
Rambo’s a really dark film, not quite “fun” in the way you’d expect. It’s entertaining as Hell, though it somehow never feels exploitative. I really can’t describe it, especially since I typically dislike films that present themselves as mindless action fun but then go about their business in grim, unpleasant, and horrendously bloody fashion. Rambo walks a really thin tightrope in this regard, and yet Stallone somehow keeps the film perfectly balanced on it. You’ll have fun, I promise – just be prepared to be kicked hard in the gut.
Sly directs with a sure hand. The action is, as per the norm these days, presented in all out shaky-cam madness. Yet Stallone never allows things to become confusing. It’s intense and incredibly visceral action storytelling, yet it remains comprehensible at the same time. Not a small feat to pull off in Shaky-Cam World.
Brian Tyler’s musical score is amazing, intense, and even melodically beautiful. Adapting Jerry Goldsmith’s wonderful theme from First Blood, Tyler creates music that transports the audience completely into Rambo’s world. In the action scenes, the music never allows us to breath for even a second. We never grow bored with the constant onslaught of sound, since it’s so well composed and conducted.
In the end, Rambo marks a great return to form for an 80s icon. Stallone proves he still has it playing one of the ultimate American icons. If this is indeed the last Rambo film, I’ll be very happy; Rambo’s gone out guns blazing, still raging (and mumbling) against the “dying of the light.”
See it. I highly doubt you’ll be disappointed.
