Rambo: “This is who I am. This is what I do.”
There’s a certain euphoria involved when one, as a viewer, realizes that one of your childhood heroes has actually brought back a character one eulogized as a kid, and has made a film for all those fans out there.
That’s precisely what ‘John Rambo’ is all about - a film for the fans of a character which has crossed the threshold and entered the realm of an icon.
Like many others, I also can’t believe that it has been twenty years since the bow-wielding, machine-gun toting, bandanna wearing Rambo made its last appearance. Yes, it made me feel old, because I still remember watching Rambo III on a VHS. I also remember watching First Blood Part II in a small movie theater in Calcutta, called ‘Elite’. Don’t know if the hall is still there, considering the plethora of multiplexes mushrooming in the city I was born and brought up in.
I actually watched the Rambo films in reverse chronology, with ‘First Blood’ being the last film in the series that I watched just a couple of months ago. In a sense, it acted as a boon - the manner in which I watched the then-trilogy, that is.
While we are at the subject of fans and Stallone, I might just touch on the other character that he has immortalized - Rocky Balboa - another alter-ego that Stallone himself brought back last year.
Well, boxing, as a sport, has never caught my fancy, and the only Rocky film that I have ever watched is the immensely forgettable Rocky IV. So, Rocky has never really been entrenched in my mind as deeply as Rambo.
However, of the little bit that I know of Rocky I find there is a common thread between him and Rambo. One fights inside the ring of a sport, the other within the ring of life. While Rocky salvages victory amidst apparent defeat, Rambo, on the other hand finds defeat amidst apparent victory.
Created by David Morrell, the character of Rambo, to me, is nothing but a depiction of how every individual, irrespective of caste, creed and faith, will ‘kill when pushed’.
Violence, as a trait, is inherent in all of us. And the word ‘Rambo’, quite aptly, (thanks to someone, who knows Japanese), supposedly means ‘violent’ (Ranbu) in Japanese.
There are two shots in the film where John is seen trying to forge a piece of scrap metal in fire. That, somehow, to me, stands for the character of Rambo. In every film of this tetralogy, I find how he is trying to salvage what little bit is left of his life. Irrespective of how much this Green Beret tries to stay away from violence, violence has a habit of finding him - violence and danger, as evinced by those cobras which we see him hunting in the very first sequence of the film.
“War is in your blood”, that’s a part of the monologue that goes on in his mind. And Rambo is, nothing short of a killing machine. In a poignant scene towards the end of the film, John sees Sarah (Julie Benz), one of the Christian missionaries he had undertaken his current ‘mission’ to rescue, running towards one of her compatriots, while Rambo stands far away watching her, clutching his wounded shoulder. Caught in someone else’s war, he is, yet again, while his continuing battle with his own self shows no sign of abating.
I know it’s kinda far fetched but as John and his band of mercenaries undertook a river ride along the Salween river to a Burmese village wherein a group of Christian missionaries, armed with only food and Bibles had been dropped by Rambo himself around 10 days ago have now been taken hostage, I inadvertently started thinking about Captain Benjamin L. Willard’s journey to find Colonel Walter E. Kurtz in ‘Apocalypse Now’. In both cases, where the journey ended, purgatory began.
And Stallone does not pull any punches (pun intended) when it comes to depicting hell. And hell is what this ‘war zone’ named Burma is. The film is gory, bloody and uber-violent. Then again, every war is. The second half of the film has possibly a higher body count than any mainstream action film that I have seen in a long, long time.
But that’s what Rambo is all about. It’s about how even the most faithful of Christians beats an individual to death when faced with the prospect of his own life being snuffed out. And that, possibly is the reason, why as a character Rambo will always be iconic.
While ‘First Blood’ began with this soldier from Special Forces arriving at the interestingly named town of Hope in Washington; ‘John Rambo’ ends with a long shot of him arriving at his hometown of Bowie, Arizona, to his father’s ranch. The similarity in the shots, one thinks, cannot be coincidental. The recluse, reluctant Rambo has at last returned to his hometown, maybe to see if something has, indeed, changed.
And, if it hasn’t…he can always ‘reload’!
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“However, of the little bit that I know of Rocky I find there is a common thread between him and Rambo. One fights inside the ring of a sport, the other within the ring of life. While Rocky salvages victory amidst apparent defeat, Rambo, on the other hand finds defeat amidst apparent victory.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/25/DDIOUKM16.DTL&type=movies
“The “Rocky” movies are all about finding victory in defeat. It doesn’t matter if he wins or loses. The films are about struggle and consolation, about coming to terms with the disappointments and limitations of life and finding satisfaction in the honest exertion of effort.
Rambo movies are about the reverse. They’re about finding defeat in victory. ”
huh?
Thank you for pointing out the article. As I said, haven’t seen much of Rocky, but from whatever I have heard about the films from my colleagues and friends, that’s what I think. It seems someone else agrees with me.
Rupak uve written a good piece here about Rambo and his iconic status which we have witnessed for quite long that we still savour the Stallone and the whole action franchise.I must have seen all the parts of Rambo at least 10 times each and would not mind seeing it another 10 times, but wats striking with this movie was really the amount of crude violence with excess blood, flesh and flying bodies. Its striking all the more because when in olden days action meant less graphics and more of rapid moving frames, here we are subjected to action which is acutely inhuman, savage and merciless to the core. Do the movie really needed such scenes were bodies scatter in the explosion, body parts fall apart, bullets bore a hole large enough to peep through, and most of all the sequence were the tyrant army general’s stomach was ripped out just to depict the wrath and anger our iconic figure had. In my view this was all something which u aptly called uber-violence, more than what is ever needed. But moreover few things which can be appreciated are the way Stallone handled the direction and never let the plot slip out on the pretext of which all the violence was done. It does carry on the legacy of the Rambo series and maybe the amount of violence we are subjected to at these present times somewhere justifies the fury we saw in the movie. All said and done Rambo will always remain as that symbol who epitomises bravery, courage, action and destiny.
@Amit
Good point, Amit. Let me see if I can answer your concern in a satisfactory manner.
The question is, Amit, do we need a ‘Saw’ franchisee, a ‘Hostel Part 1 & 2′ or the evolution of a sub-genre called ‘torture-porn’? Who answers that question? Granted there is a demand for it, that’s why ‘Saw’ is such a popular franchise and ‘Hostel’ is also known to most of us. The thing is, as humans, we are always interested in violence and the dark side of human nature. A film called ‘Untraceable’ released in the US on the same date as ‘John Rambo’ deals with that premise.
As times have changed, so has our appetite regarding how much blood and gore we can digest on screen. I think we are gradually getting sensitized to it, thanks to the Youtube boom and the media’s fascination with death.
What ‘John Rambo’ has done is upped the ante. Stallone knows that a generation fed on films that I have mentioned above has even changed the definition of ‘action’. He has just catered to the fanboys. As I said, it is a film made for the fans.
Whether I subscribe to violence on screen is a different issue. All I can say is what’s happening in Burma, for example, is worse than what you saw on screen. I have seen some footage of the carnage at Nandigram and it is unimaginable what humans can do to other humans.
Stallone has just made a film keeping in mind that times have changed. Possibly that’s the reason the film has a rating of 8.5 on IMDB and is currently ranked at #195 on its top 250 films of all time list.
in the first part, he fought for himself when cornered….in the second,he went back to his old den-vietnam…fought for his friend in rambo:3…what motivations and drives did he have in the 4th part?….this was never needed…the 4th part can never fit into the original series…as a die-hard fan of this series,i was thoroughly disappointed