Film Review: Rambo on the rampage again
You could say “Rambo” is about the horrors of war. You could say “Rambo” is glamorizing it. But you would be wrong.“Rambo” is about Sylvester Stallone, as the title character, ripping out a man’s throat with his bare hands.
This isn’t “Casablanca,” people. It isn’t “Saving Private Ryan” either, though “Rambo” trumps it in sheer brutality. “Rambo” is a “holy God, did you see what happened to that guy’s head” action movie.
Stallone, who directed, wrote, and starred, doesn’t do anything special with the camera work and the music is sparse. He went into this movie with a singular goal: to show how shellshock happens.
The synopsis is this: some Christians get captured by a vicious Burmese army. Rambo gets pissed and kills the equivalent of Rhode Island’s population.
He joins some mercenaries more interested in getting out alive than saving folks. Rambo snarls “live for nothing… or die for something!” Then they set out, thankfully without anymore of those gems.
Rambo shoots an arrow through a Burmese guy’s jaw. He obliterates dozens with a .50-caliber machine gun. He sets off a World War 2-era “tallboy” bomb, sending forth a visually stunning vortex.
What happens to the bad guys will make your jaw drop. Not because you sympathize with them – since they commit rape, pedophilia, and force villagers to run through a minefield so they can bet on who gets blown up first, it’s impossible to – but because of the power of the weapons.
Bullets tear limbs from bodies, explosions send out showers of gore and the use of knives trivializes “bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Stallone didn’t dress war up. You see every ligament and every bloody limb. If the technology was there, I’m sure the audience would have left drenched in blood.
Stallone nailed the pacing of the movie. Its curt 90-minute runtime gives Rambo enough excuse for the ultra-violence. It takes only about 30 minutes for Stallone to pry your jaw open and he doesn’t let it shut until the credits roll.
“Rambo” won’t leave you pumped like “Die Hard” but if you lust for action and can stand disembowelment, watch this movie.
‘Rambo’
Release Date: Jan. 25
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Matthew Marsden
Genre: Action, War
Rating: R for strong, graphic, bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language
Grade: B+
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