Though Platoon may always be the defining film about the Vietnam infantry experience, the Rambo series may instruct future generations on the overall psychological effects of the Vietnam war better than anything else produced before or since. Starting with First Blood in 1982, and followed by three sequels, John Rambo acted as a vessel for the anger and frustration for much of America still reeling from the idea of their nation losing a war for the first time in its history. The series (collected in its entirety for the first time on Blu-ray here) started out strong with First Blood, but due to shifts in both creative direction and cultural attitudes, Rambo becomes a sort of curious parody of himself: the kind that exposes even more by following its base instincts rather than playing it straight.
In the opening scene of First Blood, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) discovers that he is the last person left from his Vietnam unit, the only other survivor having developed cancer from exposure to Agent Orange. Distraught from the discovery, Rambo wanders the countryside, only to run into Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy), a small-town official who, taking Rambo for another drifter, tries to usher him out of town as quickly as he can. When Rambo resists, the situation escalates, and a war quickly ensues between the former Green Beret and the police. Rambo’s former commanding officer, Trautman (Richard Crenna) comes to advise the police officers to stay away and let him try and talk Rambo out, but, as you might be able to guess, this doesn’t improve the situation dramatically, at least not prior to a major showdown.
For people who are only familiar with the later Rambo films (and the resulting public impression of the character), First Blood may come as something of a surprise. Sure, it’s violent (though nowhere near as violent as later films), but there’s a sensitivity to Rambo here that is all but entirely lost in subsequent films. It’s become easy to dismiss Stallone as an actor, based on the fact that he’s essentially built a career on playing two characters, but the lack of tightly controlled mannerisms and diction is precisely what makes him so effective at roles like this. The pain that Rambo feels at losing his friends, and the anger he feels at being rejected by the country that he served, are palpable in Stallone in a way that they probably wouldn’t have been in a more polished actor (Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino were both up for the part). Because of this, First Blood is actually a pretty raw movie, particularly when it allows Stallone to by himself, as the film has so few frills that his performance never comes across as anything less than authentic.
Rambo: First Blood Part II is the beginning of the series as we know it, with a more muscled up Rambo returning to Vietnam on a mission from Army bureaucrat Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier). Released from prison after the events of the first film, Rambo is selected to go take photographs of camp sites to assure the American public that there are no longer any prisoners of war being held there. Naturally, there are, but Rambo is under strict orders not to try and release any of them. But it seems that Rambo’s only so good at following orders…(sorry, but you can’t watch four of these movies in a row and not start thinking in taglines like that). First Blood Part II was probably the most controversial when it came out, because it quite plainly asserted positions on a number of topics that represented still fresh wounds in the Vietnam-obsessed 1980s: that the Soviets were providing aid to the north Vietnamese, and that the Vietcong was still holding American GIs that it had taken prisoner during the war. But the most telling aspect of the film (and the one that makes it both the most financially successful but generally reviled of the series) comes down to a single line: before Rambo leaves prison, he asks Trautman, “do we get to win this time?” That’s right: the entire post war experience has been reduced to a Rambo-ism. In sharp contrast to First Blood, which is actually fairly ambiguous (aren’t they all supposed to be on the same side?), First Blood Part II clearly shows you who you are supposed to like and dislike, then proceeds to emphasize the point in a roughly half-hour long killing spree. But more than anything, it allows our beacon of manhood (seriously, if this movie doesn't convince you that you're out of shape, nothing will) to go back and rewrite the history of the war in our favor in the biggest act of cultural wish fulfillment of the decade. A whole essay could probably be written on the significance of that alone, but we can leave it "they won this time."
Watching Rambo III and Rambo back to back, they feel as if they are essentially the same movie, separated only by time and location. In both, Rambo is living in the jungle, nursing the wounds of whatever his last major battle was. In Rambo III, he is recruited to go fight in Afghanistan to save Trautman, who has been captured by the nefarious Russians, whereas in Rambo, he is asked by a missionary (Julie Benz) to take her church group upriver into Myanmar to bring aid to the Karen rebels. In both, he accepts only reluctantly, but then, as you might have suspected, goes on a killing rampage in the name of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While both of these films deal with well-documented situations, they also follow a very simple formula, which takes away some of the edge that the first two films had (the distance from Vietnam also contributes to this). They are certainly finely tuned, well-oiled machines, but they do not have the same feeling of raw fury laid out on the screen, despite the hugely increased level of violence (especially in Rambo).
The Rambo series probably represents, more than anything else to ever come out of Hollywood (save perhaps the recent work of Michael Bay), every negative stereotype about America that both foreigners and natives tend to distill our culture into. It’s noisy, it’s violent, and it simplifies really sensitive situations into carnival shoot ‘em up games. Some may think that this represents a uniquely abhorrent aspect of American culture, but when personified in such a singular way by Stallone, it manages to be both so appallingly ludicrous and so assertive about its own moral righteousness that it's rarely less than disarming. It’d be easy to sit here and list all of the potential flaws that one could find with the series; it’d be a whole lot harder not to cheer when the man downs helicopter after helicopter.
Because that’s the thing about Rambo: he may be a cold and efficient murderer (‘as easy as breathing’ he says in the final film), but he's always guided by a moral need to help out the underdog, be they suppressed rebels, women, or plain old do-gooders (it’s probably worth mentioning that Rambo III was one of the only major films of the 1980s to feature a positive portrayal of Muslims). So even if he gradually devolves over the course of the series into a single-minded killing machine, he’s our single-minded killing machine, asserting values that we can all appreciate with unprecedented lethal authority in a world that seems devoid of any political complications or long term consequences, such as the ones that resulted after the Vietnam war.
If only, Rambo. If only.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Though it's release is clearly meant to coincide with The Expendables coming out next month, this set was clearly produced with an eye for those who have been long time fans, particularly with the great energy that has been dedicated towards the picture and sound quality. In addition, each disc comes with a number of bonus features. Each of the first three films contain a trivia tack, a feature similar to pop-up video that you can play during the film, as well as an accompanying documentary on the making of the film: “Drawing First Blood” with First Blood, “We Get To Win This Time,” with Rambo: First Blood Part II, and “Land in Crisis” with Rambo III, which actually devotes more attention to the historical situation in Afghanistan at the time. First Blood also comes with some deleted scenes and two separate audio commentaries: one with Sylvester Stallone and another with David Morrell, the author of the original book First Blood.
The most loaded disk, however, is Rambo, as it features a number of deleted scenes and the following featurettes: “It’s a Long Road,” about the development of the film (apparently, it was originally going to take place in Mexico), “A Score to Settle,” about Brian Tyler taking up scoring duties from Jerry Goldsmith, “The Weaponry of Rambo,” which is fairly self-explanatory, “Legacy of Despair,” about the current situation in Myanmar, “The Art of War Part 1,” about the editing of the film, “The Art of War Part 2,” about the sound of the film, and “A Hero’s Welcome,” about the reception that the film received upon release.
"Rambo: The Complete Collector's Set" is on sale July 27, 2010 and is rated R. Action. Directed by George P Cosmatos, Peter MacDonald, Sylvester Stallone, Ted Kotcheff. Written by Michael Kozoll, William Sackheim, Sylvester Stallone, James Cameron, Sheldon Lettich, Art Monterastelli. Starring Brian Dennehy, Charles Napier, Julie Benz, Richard Crenna, Sylvester Stallone.
