Have a think about Sylvester Stallone? What do you see? A bloke firing a machine gun? A chap slurring his words. A muscle bound action hero?
You've got the wrong idea about him. In my opinion the man is a sorely underrated actor who can rise to the occasion in superb fashion when the material suits him. WHEN. He has starred in his fair share of dross in fairness.
Here the material suits him. And man does he rise to the occasion.
John Rambo is a Vietnam veteran and a loner. The war has done irreparable psychological damage to him. He spends his time hitchhiking because he can't face going home to his family. He goes to visit a friend that he served with only to find out that he's recently passed away from cancer after being exposed to agent orange. Distraught, John hits the road again and soon finds himself in the town of Hope (Hope, ya right) looking for a meal and a bed.He asks the sheriff for directions and gets a ride with him. The sheriff however drives him back out of town and warns him to stay away. Stubbornly John walks back into town and gets arrested. The sheriff and his deputy's abuse John in custody and this triggers flashbacks to his time as a prisoner in a Vietcong war camp and his torture there. This flips him out and he escapes the jail and finds refuge in the forests near the town. Here he uses his skills and his knowledge of guerilla warfare to stage a stand against the cops.
I love this film. It's an deep and complex tale masquerading as an action film. It's one of the few films that is better than it's source material (adapted from 'First Blood' by David Morrell). It's exciting and upsetting and thrilling and tense. It's a great cautionary tale about how people who are viewed as different are treated. It's well acted and well made and looks fantastic. That British Columbia scenery is glorious. It's one of the best films of the 1980's and one that sadly never gets much praise. It's a film that snobbish film fans overlook because of it's star and it's a pity because it delivers on pretty much every level. It's a rare beast. A visceral and emotional slap all wrapped up in an action film.
Stallone is immense in this. It's a performance of few words but he doesn't need to talk much. It's all in his eyes and his actions. Look at that look in his face in the first picture above. Life has beaten him down and it's not finished with him yet. He uses the same look in all his best films. Rocky, Copland, Creed. You empathise with him instantly. He just wants to be left alone and to suffer in silence like all dopey men. Brian Dennehy puts in a cracking performance too as the villain of the piece. He's a big physical presence and uses it well to make his bullying character believable. You hate him straight away. He's a prick. And yet all he's doing is trying to protect his town. But he's doing it in a really crappy way. His overzealousness sets the movie in motion. In his eyes he's doing the right thing. Shades of grey.
Mention the title of this film and people think of a bulletfest. It is violent in places but only one person is killed in the entire film, and that's from a fall. The violent acts in this film carry weight, have impact. They are the acts of a man defending himself the only way he knows how, the way he's been trained, instinct, muscle memory. In the sequels he becomes a killing machine and while they are fun, none of them can hold a candle to this.
People see the above poster and dismiss it straight away. The poster makes it look like a shitty action film but it's far more than that. It's an intelligent and troubling look at how society treats the people on it's fringes. The people we'd prefer not to think about. The people we avoid eye contact with on the bus and the street. A lot of this type of thinking is the fault of the sequels, This is a film that stands apart from them. It's a whole different thing.
This was one of the first mainstream American films about the Vietnam war and one of the first to be openly critical about it. (Other early ones were Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter and Coming Home) The film makes no bones about the damage done to soldiers both physically and psychologically. First we get John's friend who died from exposure to American chemical warfare. Then we have John himself who has serious mental issues from being held captive and tortured. And finally we see just how badly returning war veterans were treated in the States. The police are openly contemptuous of John and see him as little more than a criminal. The sheriff's department of Hope is a microcosm of the U.S. government. John is homeless and broke and a perfect example of how governments treat people who risk their lives for them. This was a massive issue in the States after Vietnam. The soldiers returned home expecting respect and glory like the veterans of World War 2 but instead found themselves turned into pariahs. A sad state of affairs. And one that continues to this day. 22 veterans a day take their own lives in the U.S. according to the stats.
I think people should give this another go and I think they will be genuinely surprised by how they feel after they watch it. It's a superb film.
