Rambo III

Ok round III.  After the events of Part II Rambo stuck around in Thailand (I guess he earned that presidential pardon even after threatening to kill the commander in charge?) living with Buddhist monks helping to repair their temple.  He does some brawling on the side for extra dough (this part is kinda fishy but I’ll circle back to it).  Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna (Hot Shots! Part Deux)) comes seeking Rambo’s help once again except this time in Afghanistan.  Soviet invaders are massacring the population and they need to be stopped.  The Afghans are fighting back and doing a good job but there’s one particular region that the Soviets still rule with an iron fist.  Rambo declines the offer because he’s finally at peace with himself.  Well except when he has the occasional stick match in town to pick up some frog skins for the freakend.  Anyway, Trautman goes on the mission himself, gets captured (he’s magically snuck up on by an enemy helicopter (?)) and now Rambo’s got the motivation to rescue his buddy/mentor…oh and help the Afghans while he’s there.

This almost comes off like a re-do of Part II.  The plot is pretty similar where Rambo must fly solo in a very dangerous situation to save a captured comrade.  The enemy choice is the same too because the Cold War was still happening at the time and the Soviets were an obvious easy target.  And there’s the usual machine guns blazing, explosive tipped arrows and helicopter battle type shit.

The Afghans are actually shown as brave warriors albeit somewhat primitive (they’ve never seen a glow stick before which in 1988 I find hard to believe).  They end up saving Rambo’s ass during the finale and help him throughout his mission.  BUT the implication is that they would not have succeeded against the Soviets if it weren’t for Rambo busting in there and murdering a shitload of them.

And the machoism of Rambo is something I haven’t touched on yet.  In First Blood John Rambo is rugged but he wrestles with the ruthless aggression he’s been taught to hone and exploit in warfare.  You see him struggling against what has become second nature, combat and survival by any means necessary.  In Part II he has no qualms about blowing dozens of people away and his strength alone is all that’s required to overcome the adversary.  Part III is the same.  Any nuance the character had originally is wiped away.  It turns into chest beating cave man shit that unfortunately is very popular with a large audience.  The character’s a robot.  What do we really know about John Rambo?  He kills things.  That’s about it.

You could say Rambo is America or at least how a lot of Americans like to think of themselves.  He’s an unstoppable force that can cure anything through sheer will and might.  This aspect is nauseating and part of why I could never get into these follow ups.

Surprisingly there was an attempt to lighten up the guy a bit in this installment.  Towards the end of the film Rambo all of a sudden starts throwing out one liners.  Even when faced with certain death as the entire Soviet army has their guns, tanks and helicopters pointed at he and Trautman Rambo makes a quip.  It comes off as unnatural as you would imagine.  This guy hasn’t made a single joke across two and a half movies and now he’s fuckin’ Mr. Comedy.  Such a weird decision.

You know what’s a real issue though?  The action.  Most of the sequences in Part III involve gunplay and it’s not in a badass John Woo sort of way.  It’s just Rambo flatly mowing down his enemies with a machine gun or a bow and arrow.  Part II had the same issue where it all blends together after a while.  They do a big helicopter chase/fight scene too which again, is similar to Part II.  Jeez, the action isn’t varied nearly enough and it isn’t artfully done so it gets boring.

It also takes over forty minutes for Rambo to start doin’ his killin’ thang.  This makes me suspicious of the underground fight scene in the beginning I mentioned earlier.  We’re introduced to Rambo battling some dude in front of a huge ravenous crowd of gamblers.  The scene doesn’t seem to serve any real purpose other than to include more fighting.  I have a feeling this scene was added after the filmmakers realized almost no action takes place until deep into the movie.

I guess in one sense they make up for lost time by having a staggering body count of 127.  How did we get here?  First Blood is so quaint compared to its sequels.

This is a really dumb movie.  I mean I do like how there seemed to be a conscious effort to place Rambo in a different setting each time.  The thing is the result is still the same as Part II.  Where’s the heart?  Where’s the soul?  It’s stupid American barbarian crap where only we can make the difference, even if you don’t want us to.