#37 — Rambo (2008)
This is an ongoing, illustrated (that means pictures) countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about an action movie I think should be real, but sadly isn’t.
I like stories about monsters, outcasts, and misunderstood beings shunned by society or abused for their power. Hulk, Swamp Thing, the Philly Phanatic. This one is about John Rambo — a human weapon now a recluse in Burma. Stallone is in his veiny, old, muscle man phase here, and he’s absolutely ogre-like. Constantly hunched over in dirty, loose-fitting clothes, probably bathing in swamp water. He’s Shrek with a thousand-yard stare. Living as a boatman and snake catcher in the middle of the jungle, he has no interest in human interaction, friendship, or love. He’s trying to suppress the enormous hurt from his past, and the events that transpired in Sheriff Teasle’s little town of Hope.
Rambo felt betrayed by just about everyone after that mess. Traumatized by loss and the lack of any support system, it’s hard to believe him as someone who would run back into the field again for some second or third blood, armed with only his knife and an inexplicable trust in bureaucrats. So when missionaries ask him to take them upriver to deliver medical aid, he understandably sees them as dead meat. A woman named Sarah convinces him with some bumper sticker theology. “Trying to save a life isn’t wasting your life”. They don’t realize they’re inviting the world’s greatest soldier into a volatile situation that is destined to blow up in everyone’s face, get the missionaries kidnapped, and cause a Colorado pastor to come begging for Rambo to aid his hired mercenaries on a rescue mission. Where did he find those mercs, anyways? I wonder if the Hobby Lobby guy was involved in this operation. You get what you pay for.
The most striking, oddball attribute of this movie is how it feels like watching one of those faith-based Kirk Cameron films being eaten alive, chewed up, and spit out as violent exploitation. I don’t think there’s ever been anything like it. Maybe some of Mel Gibson’s directorial efforts come close. After killing a bunch of Burmese soldiers, Rambo aggressively convinces the mercenaries they need his expertise in killing. “Live for nothing or die for SOMETHING. Your call” He says this to a former SAS soldier while pointing an arrow at his face with a cross pendant wrapped around his wrist. Pastor Rambo, minister of death, has taken the wheel.
The action climax is a classic Rambo rescue (massacre) and it’s both tragic and cathartic. There’s nothing left to do but relent to the seemingly supernatural forces that keep dropping him in front of .50 caliber machine guns like some kind of twisted Old Testament parable. As he lays waste to everything in sight, it feels like the ultimate expression of who he is and the pain he’s endured. He doesn’t have to explain anything.
He shares a nonverbal exchange with Sarah and Michael after the battle, but there’s no demonstration of solidarity or joy. No raised fist, not even a head nod. Rambo is surveying the battlefield again, perhaps thinking “I’ve done my job. Now go home” There’s no other emotional function at play. In First Blood: Part II, he asks “do we get to win this time?” The question has only gotten sillier. The only victory is preserving enough of his soul to find peace, perhaps back on his ranch in Arizona. I bet he spends the rest of his days bonding with his horses, never to kill again. Maybe he buys a dvd player and a little 24” tv and gets hooked on Bob’s Burgers. Maybe he becomes a YouTuber, posting DIY videos from his barn. Whatever the case may be, I’m certain there won’t be any more blood, right?
*This governing body does not recognize Rambo: Last Blood as the cannon ending to the series and have chosen to strike it from the record.
As for the missionaries, I’m not sure how they’re gonna explain this one back home. “The Lord really strengthened my faith when I saw that baby thrown in the fire, and now my resolve to fight with the Karen rebels burns hotter than the charred bodies of their comrades” probably won’t fly. And Michael was last seen with an Evil Dead expression on his face, braining an enemy soldier with a rock. That’s the opposite of being a doctor. I wonder how he’s holding up.
Rambo 4 came at a time where mainstream tastes were changing, and it seems to have gotten lost in time, like tears in a tsunami of comic book characters and very bad Olivier Megaton movies. It’s perhaps the leanest, meanest, most unsung action film of the ’00s. It’s also angry, cynical, and misguided. I enjoy it as a send-off for old man Rambo. Now let him rest.
