Film Review - Rambo (2008)
Now if like me youʼve seen Rambo First Blood, Rambo First Blood Part 2 and Rambo 3, then I
imagine you started jumping up and down making little squeaky noises upon hearing about the
fourth film in the series, Rambo.
The first thing that springs immediately to mind when I watched this film was the title. Rambo.
Whilst like a popular wood stain product Rambo does exactly what it say on the tin, I couldnʼt help but wonder why Mr Stallone hadnʼt taken a bit more time to think of a better title. However if we cast our minds back to the Rocky series, he did more or less the same thing there.
Moving on. The latest Rambo epic is set many years after Rambo 3, when John Rambo has left
the life of big knives, heavy machine guns and shouting behind him and moved to Thailand hoping for the peaceful life catching snakes. It sounds idyllic I know. However his peaceful snake wrangling existence is soon interrupted when a group of naive Christian human rights missionaries ask him for a lift into Burma. Rambo knowing full well that Burma has been a war zone for many years, with the Burmese military killing near enough anything that moves to death, refuses to help. Eventually there attractive female member Sarah (Julie Benz) manages to talk him round. Oh Rambo you may be a hard man, but youʼre still a sucker for a pretty face. During their trip up river the boat is stopped by the Burmese military and surprise surprise Rambo responds by shooting them all in the face. When the slightly shaken missionaries arrive at their destination they are soon caught in the middle of one of the Militiaʼs raids, led by the sadistic Major Pa Tee Tint. They are all taken hostage and I think you can probably guess where this is going now. Rambo gets sent in with a small team of mercenaries to rescue the hostages, kill the bad guy and essentially kick some Burmese bottom. So the usual Rambo blood bath then ensues with this Rambo movie racking up the highest body count yet.
The table below illustrates the afore mentioned point.
Film Total Body Count Kills Per Minute
Rambo First Blood 1 0.01
Rambo First Blood Part 2 69 0.72
Rambo 3 132 1.30
Rambo 236 2.59
As you can see a fairly hefty leap.
Now overall the production values of this film are great. The locations are superb, the special
effects are quite special and the directing from Mr Stallone isnʼt half bad. What lets this film down massively is itʼs feeble attempt to make a political statement and at the same time inspire people to help the Burmese people with their struggle. Now I for one believe what the people of Burma have to endure is terrible, after all the film is based on truth. However what Sylvester Stallone should have realized that Rambo maybe isnʼt the best political figure.
In summery if you want to watch a fairly brainless run and gun film with explosions, people getting ripped to shreds with machine gun fire and a big muscly man attempting to be inspirational then this film is just right for you. If however you would rather watch something intelligent that does make you think then avoid this film like the plague.
