Thoughts on Rambo: First Blood Part II

via IMDB

"Great title, guys."

-- David Denby, New York

The movie may be called Rambo: First Blood Part II, but it really tells the story of Stallone: Raging Narcissist Year IX. Since 1976, Stallone had written or co-written and/or directed eight out of his last 10 films (plus Staying Alive, which he produced and made a cameo in) and if they hadn't already, the seams were showing.

Clocking in at 96 minutes, Rambo: First Blood Part II includes BIG MOMENT!s right on schedule, at roughly 32 minutes and 64 minutes. The shockers seem to be included to give the audience enough time to catch their breaths from a relentless array of stunts. They've aged well, which is more than I can say for an often self-important plot.

"The war, the whole conflict may have been wrong, but damn it, don't hate your country for it."
"Hate? I'd die for it."
"Then what is it you want?"
"I want, what they want, and every guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had, wants! For our country to love us as much as we love it! That's what I want!"

"I realize his speech at the end may have caused millions of viewers to burst veins in their eyeballs by rolling them excessively, but the sentiment stated was conveyed to me by many veterans."

-- Sylvester Stallone

To be fair to Stallone or James Cameron, whomever wrote that dialogue, it's not too far off from Tom Cruise's speech about loving America near the end of Born on the Fourth of July. Whereas Tom/Ron Kovic/Oliver Stone was primarily criticizing the U.S. government, however, Stallone/John Rambo/Cameron is primarily criticizing an unfeeling U.S. population. Rambo: First Blood Part II was a big hit, so those lines were heard by many people, including those interacting with or making decisions affecting America's veterans. I want to respect the inclusion of such a subversive moment, but then I remember what came before.

It's hard to take Rambo: First Blood Part II seriously in light of its audience manipulation. Reviewing the movie, David Denby observed the filmmakers' reliance "on the furious emotional appeal of the 'stab in the back.'" You can sum it up with short, shouted sentences.

The Vietnam War can still be won! Murdock's full of shit! There's pirates! And living POWs! The pirates do their pirate thing! The government does its cover up thing! The Russians do their Russian thing! Holy crap, Co's killed! Rambo kills a bunch of guys! None of them are American! A rocket launcher is fired from inside a helicopter! Rambo comes for Murdock! Care again about Vietnam!

*Murdock (Charles Napier) has lost his computer equipment and is in danger of being stabbed*
"Rambo, I swear to God I didn't know it was going to happen like this. It was just supposed to be another assignment!"
"Mission ... accomplished. *the knife is jabbed into a desk, not Murdock's head* You know there's more men out there and you know where they are. Find 'em. Or I'll find you."

Directed by George P. Cosmatos, with a story by Kevin Jarre, Rambo: First Blood Part II has its enjoyable elements. There's excellent photography by Jack Cardiff and a score by Jerry Goldsmith. Richard Crenna is just slightly less better here than he was in First Blood. You don't often see Napier as the least masculine man in a scene and he makes the most out of the compromised Murdock. Julia Nickson is a delight as Co, even if I couldn't quite buy that she'd fall for Rambo. It feels like some motivation was glossed over, or else Co's turned on by self-pity. "You're not expendable," indeed!

On the demerit side, we have Steven Berkoff doing nothing new. Let's face it, the real villains are the unseen Americans at-large. Hell, I'd accept some strawman left-wingers just to liven things up. Still, the ultimate crime of Rambo: First Blood Part II is that it permits Stallone's "look at me!" mode.

I liked Rambo: First Blood Part II better than I thought I would. But it still feels to me like Baby's First Action-Adventure.

"To survive a war, you gotta become war."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- Box Office: Grossing $150.4 million on a $25.5 million budget, this opened at No. 1 over Memorial Day weekend and came in at No. 2 for 1985. It has the distinction of being the first movie to open in more than 2,000 theaters across America and received four preview segments on Today.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie's appeal: Stallone's face and body were filmed at obsessive levels, according to Vincent Canby, creating a camp classic experience. "It is to the action film what Flashdance was to the musical," Pauline Kael wrote, "with one to-be-cherished difference: audiences are laughing at it."

-- Critic's Corner, Rambo/Stallone: "(He) isn't a man who needs the love of others," Canby wrote. "He loves himself quite enough." Kael: "The way he's photographed, he's huge -- our national palooka." Denby: "The camera seems to have developed a peculiar, not to say pathological, interest in Sylvester Stallone's body. ... Stallone is so pumped up his veins have erections."

-- Critic's Corner, the movie and its politics: Canby: "Implausible if not truly bubble-headed." Rita Kempley: "Volatile and nonverbal, not to mention badly acted and a threat to world peace." "We're getting a native fascist movement in filmmaking, and it's marching right down the center of Main Street," Denby wrote.

-- Hey, It's 1985!: "Incessant paramilitary action is the New Wave in Hollywood, and automatic weapons are its surfboards," David Edelstein wrote in Rolling Stone. "With a coarsened aesthetic comes coarsened politics: you don't hear a lot about the brotherhood of man. Right-wing paranoids are hipsters; the liberals are retro or, worse yet, psycho. ... People are eager to be led, to work off their aggression through leaders who'll talk about battling the commies and bashing the street scum. There's an impatience with complexity, a willful simple-mindedness -- a subordination of thought to knee-jerk emotions. ... The sad trust is that a lot of people get their politics from movies -- our president, for instance, who invoked the name of Rambo in the aftermath of the TWA hostage crisis."
-- Today in Sketch Comedy: Later in 1985, SNL ran a parody commercial for Stallone and Chuck Norris' latest, "Die, Foreigner, Die!" They're up against the Russians, Red Chinese, Iranians, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, East Germans ("No, make that all Germans."), French, Spanish, Italians, Japanese, Mexicans, Canadians, Indians ("Both kinds."), Norwegians and more Red Chinese.

-- Awards Watch: Oscar-nominated for Best Sound Effects Editing, this lost to Back to the Future.

-- Demerits Watch: This, Rocky IV and Red Sonja (starring then and short-lived Mrs. Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen) accounted for 19 out of the 55 nominations for the 6th Golden Raspbery Awards. Rambo won Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Stallone won for both movies), Worst Screenplay and Worst Song for "Peace in Our Life," co-written and sung by Frank Stallone. It was also nominated for Worst Supporting Actress (Nickson, Talia Shire and Sandahl Bergman lost to Nielsen for Rocky IV), Worst Director (Cosmatos lost to Stallone for Rocky IV) and Worst New Star (Nickson lost to Nielsen for both her movies).

-- Memorable Music: The score remains at 17-13 in favor of songs written for movies. I refuse to give a point to "Peace in Our Life."

via YouTube

-- "John, I want you to try and forget the war. Remember the mission. The old Vietnam's dead." "Sir, I'm alive. If I'm alive, it's still alive."

-- Because my local movie theater is closed, I've repacked some of these Thoughts On posts and run them as Retro Reviews for my paper. My colleague is a big Stallone fan and I was looking forward to doing something different, a Point/Counterpoint on this movie. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to watch and we ended up not needing the piece, anyway. Still, if (God forbid!) the theater is still closed in November, we've got to do Rocky IV.

-- Next: A View to a Kill. On deck: Fletch. Coming soon: The Goonies, Perfect.