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Home > First Blood - When Rambo Wasn't Rambo
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First Blood - When Rambo Wasn't Rambo by Gus Larking
Rambo was a very big part of my childhood. Not so much because of the movies, although I'm sure I saw them as a kid, but because of the cartoon series. Not only I watched it, I had the toys! Including, of course, Rambo himself, in all his muscular glory.
But as I watched First Blood on DVD a few days ago, I was surprised to discover a Rambo that was unlike the one I remembered. See, for me Rambo was just a straight out hero, who kicked all the bad guys' asses week after week. But in the first movie John Rambo wasn't quite a clear cut good guy. Instead, he was a Vietnam veteran with serious issues (and by that I mean he was quite crazy). And he doesn't fight bad guys from overseas. Instead, he clashes with local cops and the National Guard.
The basic story is something like this: John Rambo goes to visit the last living member of his Vietnam unit. Turns out the guy died (cancer). This upsets Rambo. On his way out of town he encounters a sheriff who doesn't much like the way John looks, and tries to get him out of town as soon as possible. Rambo doesn't take the sheriff's efforts nicely and ends up getting himself arrested. Then, while in jail, he gets mistreated by many of the cops. This triggers some bad Vietnam memories and makes him go berserk. Rambo escapes the prison and hides in the woods, regressing into his Vietnam survival-at-all-costs behavior. All hell breaks loose after that.
The movie, which is based in a book of the same name, goes to great pains to show Rambo as someone who doesn't really want to hurt anybody. As a matter of fact, he doesn't directly kill anyone, although people do die while pursuing him. The movie also makes most of the cops into caricatures who constantly abuse Rambo for no reason and who put themselves in danger due to obsessively wanting to catch and kill our hero. But there is no denying that Rambo himself is a disturbed individual that causes much damage through his reckless actions. And that the cops, and later national guardsmen, aren't really evil people, even if they do many bad things.
The first film was a success. And I guess someone (probably Stallone himself) thought to themselves: "Hey, this Rambo character is really tough and cool. I wonder what would happen if we downplayed the crazy a little and put him against some really bad guys?." So, in Rambo 2 he fights the Vietnamese and the Russians. And the more well known incarnation of Rambo was born.
The themes of First Blood, which are basically about what we had our soldiers go through in Vietnam and about what responsibilities we have to them now that they are back, are, to me, more interesting than the simpler good versus evil of the later movies. But the film is also a bit of a wasted opportunity. It is too worried about having Rambo seem like a bad guy. It is also a little too amused by the action scenes, putting the characters at the core of the story at the background at several points.
There is one very good scene towards the end, where we get to see Stallone act out a long monologue in which Rambo talks very emotionally about what he saw in Vietnam and about how that scarred him. But overall the film only broaches these subjects and ends up being neither a very good action film nor a deep discussion of the aftermath of Vietnam.
Perhaps someday I will take another look at Rambo 2, for the nostalgic factor. Perhaps I won't. But it was interesting to find out that Rambo wasn't always who I remembered him to be.
About the Author
Gus Larking knows nothing about movies, really. But he sure loves to talk about them. You can find more of his writings at http://www.movie-snark.com
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