First Blood DVD > Reviews > Don't Push Him

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Very ordinary
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Standard
Soundtrack	Weak

Advantages:	See review
Disadvantages:	See review

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Think Rambo and most action movie fans will think of the blood soaked, pneumatic killing machine who graced the ludicrously excessive 2 sequels to First Blood whilst neatly forgeting the more intelligently crafted, ground breaking first movie...and yes, I did say both "intelligent" and "ground breaking". First Blood bravely paved the way for confessional Vietnam movies like "Platoon", "Born On The Fourth of July", "Full Metal Jacket" etc. which replaced the gung-ho, death and glory war movies of yesteryear and made damn sure cinema audiences would never take them seriously ever again. The likes of "Platoon" will always be remembered above "First Blood" for their war is personal hell motif and quotable taglines like "The first casualty of war is innocence", but it is John Rambo who lost that innocence first on our screens and gave other more lauded directors, than the one we see here, the balls to make movies which followed suit in depicting some of the more heavyweight emotional issues thrown up by that war and war in general. Arguably "The Dirty Dozen" took the first shots at the glorification of war, but for me it was "First Blood" which zipped up the body bag and opened up 'Nam in particular to cinematic scrutiny.

First Blood as a movie is getting on a little in years, but time hasn't been *too* cruel to it because it doesn't really try to do anything *too* special. It is undeniably better than the two sequels which followed, which turned John Rambo into a farcical idol of gun lobbyists everywhere and a poster boy for the US Republican right (with even Ronald Reagan getting in on the act as "Ronbo" for a while!) but you'd still be hard pressed to see it as a masterpiece as opposed to simply entertainment. John Rambo is the embodiment of the betrayed 'Nam vets, the forgotten victims who returned home not to a hero's welcome but to be shunned by their own countrymen and initially we are led to be sympathetic for him and those like him, but that is quickly crushed by cinematic excess. The opening segment of the movie finds him visiting a small hick town searching for an old friend from the war only to find him dead from cancer caused by "that orange stuff" according to the flippant, ill-informed explaination he receives illustrating how America tried and succeded for a while to forget the tragic war. Stunned, and wanting only time to brood he instead finds himself hassled by the town's sherrif Will Teasle(Brian Dennehy) who takes an instant dislike to his dishevelled appearance, non-communicative demeanor and believes his wearing of the US flag is a p*ss-take rather than an symbol of his patriotism. When he refuses to capitulate his 'authority' by not leaving town for the crime of being what amounts to 'a little scruffy' he is arrested on trumped up charges of vagrancy to be subjected to further abuse and humiliation at the hands of other policemen in the cells. Something snaps when memories of Vietnamese torture surface and Rambo escapes to bring a little taste of Vietnam to bear on the towsfolk and National Guard, a one man army pushed over the edge by a sherrif on a personal crusade and a country who wants to forget him...

When "First Blood" was made Stallone was on something of a career high following the (inexplicable!) success of his brainchild "Rocky" which earned him an Academy award and with John Rambo was set to release another generation defining character on the unsuspecting movie loving world. Originally we were looking at some mindless payback psycho, the role ear-marked for Al Pacino until he pulled out because they refused to make John Rambo *more* intense but when Stallone came on board he changed things to make the character a far more sympathetic figure, suffering from what would now be termed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the war. Certainly it was a wise plan because a young man running around killing and maiming cops would undoubtedly not have been a character any audience would have warmed to without at least some kind of motivation. His portrayal is simple yet effective, giving us the confused innocence and doe eyes which worked so well in "Rocky" once more and delivering a minimal number of lines which is clever as not only does it not allow Stallone's lack of acting ability to mess things up, but also keeps his character feeling mysterious and dangerous. When John Rambo takes on the world and wins it's easy to believe here which is more than can ever be said of any of the other similar action movies which have littered the genre both before and after the fact and for me, even his much maligned break-down speech towards the end(although almost unintelligible!) works if you can empathise with the character.

To feel any sympathy at all for Stallone's character you need a good bad guy to play off however and we certainly get that in Brian Dennehy who puts in another heavyweight performance (in more ways than one) in the kind of tough guy role he is type-cast into these days. It's the arrogance of this character which pushes John Rambo over the edge and even when warned time and again, it's the arrogance which keeps him as the best villain John Rambo has faced. "Don't push it. Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe" Stallone growls into Dennehy's ear after having taken out his entire police troop with a variety of traps and ambushes in the woods, but still, even with the knowledge that Rambo is an ex-green beret and decorated war hero, Dennehy must push it and he gets his war. Dennehy has been playing this kind of character for years and brings that experience to bear in a hick sherrif role he suits perfectly.

The only weak link, because aside from three characters the rest are 100% faceless, is the superfluous Colonel Trautman played by Richard Crenna whose sole purpose in the movie is to deliver long, smug, boring, pointless speeches about how John Rambo is the best and is going to whup some ass...well no shit! We do have eyes right? Trautman's presence creates lulls in the action which I for one could have done without and serves no real purpose other than to tell us things which the evidence of our own eyes has already informed us of...oh and to be the sounding board for the final speech which defines the social aspect and reasoning for the carnage...IF you can understand a word of what Stallone is babbling about...AND swallow a Rambo flick as a message movie.

Rambo as king of the woods is great fun and very reminiscent in visual styling of the movie Deliverance, harsh, washed out and without the Hollywood gloss which seems to accompany these one-man-army flicks which greatly aids it's effectiveness. Rambo rampaging through the town in the final 20/30 minutes is where things really kick off however in the sense of macho posturing, big guns and payback and erm...a complete loss of plot an sympathy for the main character. When John Rambo was a man pushed over the edge by a bunch of sadistic, cowardly hick cops it was one thing, when a cop died it felt like it had gone too far, but when he begins to systematically tear apart an entire town it's difficult to retain any sympathy for his personal hell no matter how far he and those like him have been pushed. Post-traumatic stress disorder or otherwise, you can't cause wanton carnage and still expect sympathy and in this final 30 minutes, First Blood neatly unravels the good work it did in the first 30 in making us care for Stallone's character and just becomes another 'beefcake-takes-on-the-world' flick. I suppose an action movie like this isn't the best place for deep and meaningfuls but it started off as if it just might be able to incorporate both action and scathing social commentary into it's plot and fails to retain it which is disappointing.

All things considered, First Blood is still a movie worth checking out if only to remember the time when Stallone could be taken seriously in Hollywood or just to check out the movie which paved the way for the confessional 'Nam sub-genre. Oh and just in case anyone considered this movie to be 'old news', it was reported not too long ago that Sylvester Stallone is considering making Rambo IV with the ever so slightly distasteful plot hook of Rambo returning to Afghanistan to kick a little Taliban butt...

...hmm yeah, hopefully it is/was just an 'idea' eh? I'm told the book is infinitely better by the way if paper floats your boat better than celluloid.