Published: February 05, 2008 12:17 am            

Stallone brings the pain — and blood — to ‘Rambo’

This is the movie that should have been titled “There Will Be Blood.”

After 20 years, John Rambo had a lot of killing to make up for.

That’s one of the conclusions you could come up with after Sylvester Stallone’s fourth installment of the grizzled Vietnam vet slicing and shooting his way through various enemies in perhaps the bloodiest, most violent action movie in years. The violence happens early and often and nothing is held back in the over-the-top, almost laughable bloodfest.

When we last saw Rambo, he was helping fight off the Soviets in Afghanistan. Since then, he has lived in Thailand off the coast of Burma, a perpetual war zone that no one goes near, scratching out a life wrangling snakes for a local exhibit.

His quiet existence is interrupted when a group of Christian missionaries led by Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze) and his girlfriend, Sarah (Julie Benz), want Rambo’s help to guide them up the river so they can deliver food and medical supplies to the Burmese people.

Rambo has zero interest in helping them, or pretty much anybody else. He utters a phrase that can’t be printed here that sums up his entire view of things.

But after some more cajoling by Sarah, he reluctantly agrees and takes them into the war zone, killing some would-be kidnappers along the way, getting them to their destination.

Shortly after their arrival, the group is ambushed by a group of soldiers who wipe out an entire village of people and kidnap the missionaries. This is a tough scene to watch as no one is spared. Children are stabbed, women are raped, limbs are chopped off, many people are blown up and shot to death.

Word of this reaches the church’s representatives who go back to Rambo and ask him to help rescue the group. Rambo agrees, and along with a group of motley mercenaries, heads in and shoots, stabs and bombs their way through the soldiers to get to the missionaries.

Again, Stallone, who also directed and co-wrote the script, spares no expense with the violence. This is definitely not the standard ’80s action film that the last couple of “First Blood” movies were. It is violent and brutal. When heads aren’t exploding, they’re being decapitated. It’s a different movie world and Stallone is smart enough to recognize that.

With all of the killing going on, there really isn’t much done in terms of character development. Julie Benz as Sarah is the only one who’s given a bit of a chance to develop much as a character.

Although Rambo doesn’t come off quite as fascinating as he did in the original “First Blood” movie, Stallone still portrays him with that quiet stoicness where you can tell there’s more to him than what’s on the surface. It’s kind of funny to watch the other mercenaries mistake Rambo’s quietness for weakness when you know he’s going to save their hides in the end.

So Stallone delivers what you would expect from “Rambo.” Blood, guts and violence. And isn’t that what we want from our action heroes?



One and a half stars out of five. “Rambo” is 91 minutes long and is rated R for strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language.



Andy Paugh writes for Ottumwa (Iowa) Courier. He can be reached at aspaugh@mchsi.com

        

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