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Rambo

Stallone brings his Ranger back from the dead!
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden
Rating: 9/10
Directed By: Sylvester Stallone
Runtime: 93 minutes

Thanks to Tim League and the always wonderful Alamo Drafthouse, Robert Lambert, Nathan Hamilton and myself just got out of an advanced screening of what was probably my most anticipated movie of the first half of this year: Rambo. Let me lead off by saying this movie does not disappoint. If you remember your reaction to the long trailer last spring, the movie is exactly like that except longer. I believe this film's warning speaks for itself:

Rated R for strong, graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language.

This sells the movie far better than any words I can put on paper and Rambo stands behind every word. It should have read "gristly images" because enough gristle appears to film a dozen Hostel's.

The movie begins with John Rambo chillin' in Thailand helping run a snake show by acquiring said reptiles. He is badgered by a group of missionaries for a ride upriver to scenic Burma, of which a lovely montage was played at the beginning of the film. I recall several innocent villagers shot, children pressed into military service and houses burned to the ground, illustrating 60 years of civil war. Rambo is basically guilted into the trip by Julie Benz ("Saving a life costs you nothing") so upriver they go... right into the hands of river pirates. This is the first glimpse we get of the Rambo we all know and love as he takes these pirates apart in like 3 seconds flat. The missionaries are properly horrified ("I'm going to have to report this. I know you think you did right, but killing people is never right.") and Rambo drops them off.

Well, what do you think happens? Rambo is approached by a diocese priest who is worried because the missionaries are 10 days overdue. That's because the village they picked to missionize is instantly overrun by the evil Burmese regime. And by "instantly" I mean ten minutes of absolutely awesome Feast levels of violence, which is an idea so past its time to add horror technology to the action genre - and Sly Stallone, of all people, the man who delivers the goods! People get blown apart (like Legos!) by mortar fire, bullets riddle the helpless, a kid gets stabbed, a kid gets his head stepped on and a baby gets flung by one leg into a burning building. Freakin' incredible and this is just a tease for the awesomeness to come! Anyway, the priest has already hired mercenaries so would Rambo show them where he dropped the missionaries off please?

Yes he will. That is the movie. The rest is a Rambo II-esque rescue from the Burmese army encampment and a desperate fight back to the boat for freedom. The Burmese bad guys number one hundred which means Rambo has lots of dudes to shoot at. Here again I cannot stress enough the sheer amount of awesome violence that appears in the last forty minutes of this film. Pieces of people fly everywhere, bullets make tennis ball-sized exit wounds in dudes, tons of explosions and plenty of guys for this all to happen to. Rambo at one point takes over a mounted machine gun and turns it on the driver who literally pulps, spraying the front shield of Rambo's weapon in gristle and blood. As Rambo continues to fuck up everything he sees the gun continually drips the remains of the driver. I want to go on but there is so much incredible disemboweling, head-twisting, red rover with live mine playing, knife throwing, bow and arrow slinging, machine gun spraying, woman abusing, shit exploding craziness that I could write all day and not cover it all.

Rambo is a flat-out must-see film. The only thing that really stops it from being a 10 is not enough people die. And Rambo looks real old. Still credible, however. The film is paced well and travels at a good clip. Sylvester Stallone wowed us with an aging Rocky Balboa but deserves tremendous accolades for what he accomplished with Rambo. He was able to take a character that was all but dead after Rambo III and hearken back to what made the 80s action film so great. The plot is not the most revolutionary but the sheer level of disgusting and insane crazy violence totally carries this film through all 93 incredible minutes. I did notice some heinousness in the long trailer that was absent from the film so I now anticipate an excellent unrated dvd. Hopefully it will be longer (which is what we all wanted... more!!) and adds more kills. Two hundred dudes wasn't enough. Thirty minutes more and one hundred more dudes is all I ask. Anyway, until Rambo 5 believe me that Rambo is the best thing to hit theaters in some time (unless you went to Fantasticfest) and is the go-to film this spring. Forget your old guys trying to be young or your love story with five minutes of monster action. Do yourself a favor and see Rambo. Then see it again.