Rambo

2008’s Rambo is essentially what may be an exploitation film. Attracting viewers for their more prurient interests, this Sylvester Stallone-directed madhouse of violence and bloodshed deserves to stand in the pantheon of other exploitation films. With gobs of graphic violence and mayhem, Rambo picks up the gauntlet of exploitation that had long been abandoned by filmmakers in the modern age. Unlike Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, however, it’s hard to tell whether Stallone’s directorial intentions were geared towards a send-up of a genre or if his intentions were actually to make a serious film. If it’s the latter, then Rambo may be the most pompously gaudy bloodbath in years. If it’s the former, Rambo actually has some redeeming value.

A lot of people will love Rambo for not “wussing out” on the gore or the action. In no uncertain terms, Rambo is one hell of a violent film. According to Alex Billington and his article on FirstShowing.net, the latest instalment of the Rambo series has more kills than any other instalment of the hallowed series. With an estimated total kill count of 236 and about 2.59 kills per minute, Rambo certainly doesn’t skimp on the bloodshed and the relentless nature of it often leads to many muddled scenes where the audience isn’t sure who’s killing who. Of course, it’s Rambo, it’s 2008, and it doesn’t matter.

Rambo picks up where Rambo III left off, as John Rambo (Stallone) is hanging out in Thailand near the Burmese border. He apparently has landed a killer gig capturing snakes for snake fighters and he also takes roamers up the river in his ridiculously slow boat. One fine day when Rambo is stuffing a snake in a cage, a crew of missionaries approach him and want to use his boating services to get up the river to Burma, where they intend to do some missionary work. Rambo advises against it, but eventually takes them up the river anyway, mainly because a blonde missionary (Julie Benz) has caught his eye. As time passes, the missionaries are captured by Burmese army guys and are forced into camps. Rambo must save them.

The idea behind Rambo is that audiences will discover a hero again, as in Stallone’s Rocky Balboa. The film is meant to capture and build on the natural nostalgia that people feel for the characters. When we find John Rambo in the jungle again, his face is weathered and chiselled out of granite, reminding us somewhat of Clint Eastwood’s weathered face in Unforgiven. Stallone’s John Rambo is a quiet man with rumbles of intensity within and his portrayal of the hero is significantly low-key and minimalistic in terms of actual dialogue and actual emotion. Of course, John Rambo is a soulless killing machine and simply needs to know where to point and how to shoot, so not much is required out of Stallone here. Rambo isn’t a film one sees for the acting, either.

Of course, the conflict in Burma (now called Myanmar by most of the world, except for the United States and United Kingdom governments who did not recognize the name change back in 1989) is very real and very disturbing. Myanmar is governed by a strict military regime and has been for quite some time. There are constant protests in Myanmar and humanitarian aid is very important in that region. As usual in these types of situations, there are corporations that gain from what is happening over there and profit from the conflict and the militaristic rule of government. With the Myanmar people in constant states of danger from a corrupt and dangerous military, I can think of no better setting for Rambo than Burma. The problem with Rambo is in its treatment of the people in Myanmar, as they merely become fodder for bullets, mines, and all sorts of other violent deaths.

As exploitation cinema, this type of insensitivity is par for the course. As a responsible, modern film made by a sensitive, knowledgeable filmmaker, this would be unacceptable. Rambo looks, smells, and should be like a B-movie, but many of the scenes are shot with a sort of sadness that belies the idea that it might not be intended as exploitation. Stallone’s direction seems to decry the violence in one scene, only to hype it up in the other. He’s trying to sell his hero so badly that he has no issue with gleefully demonstrating the horrors of conflict. It’s hard to take that sort of sincerity from the HGH-jacked Stallone, but you never know, he could really really mean it. With children being stepped on and spiked, women being consistently raped and ravaged, and everything in between, it’s hard to take any sort of “message” within this vile film as credible.

As an exploitation picture, I might be able to stomach this tripe. Unfortunately, the evidence points another way. Stallone uses the horrors of a very real conflict that is ongoing and murderous to bolster support for his aging hero. This is the worst form of masturbatory filmmaking and, while there is some value to considering war and consequence, the more effective way to do so is likely not to make this real-life civil war seem like a video game. While Rambo might have attempted to bring audiences to an awareness about Myanmar and the conflicts there, perhaps engaging them to dialogue about genocide and how it can be stopped, the reality about Rambo is that people will most likely guffaw about how violent, bloody, and cool the beast was.

Trailer: