RAMBO REVISITED
In 1982, the movie First Blood made its debut on the silver screen and starred Sylvester Stallone. The movie is actually based on a book by David Morrell. It was about John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), a Vietnam veteran wrongfully arrested by a red-neck sheriff and his equally red-neck deputies in a small seemingly red-neck town. He ends up waging a one-man war against the sheriff and the National Guard (about 200 or so). The sheriff’s town becomes a war zone. Rambo’s only friend is his former commanding officer Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) who comes in to defuse this private war. Interestingly enough, Rambo was supposed to be killed off as in the book. In the movie, he survives and this paved the way for three more sequels to follow. The fourth movie is the subject of discussion, although I will look back at the two sequels.
About 26 years after the debut of First Blood, Rambo is back. Living a secluded life in Northern Thailand, Rambo is hired by a group of missionaries who are trying to get to Burma by river to help the villagers there. Burma had recently been the subject of ethnic genocide by the Burmese military. After getting the missionaries to their destination, Rambo sails back to Thailand. The missionaries then hike to the village to conduct their humanitarian work. Long before they ever got there, the U.S. State Department had warned them not to go to Burma. Even Rambo warned them not to go. Despite all the warnings, they went anyways. Several days later, the Burmese military attacked the village, killed many people -and several missionaries, and took the surviving missionaries captive.
Since the State Department was not going to do anything -and rightfully so- the Church hires Rambo and a few mercenaries to go into Burma to rescue what was left of the missionaries. This would follow with a climactic battle scene between Rambo, the mercenaries, and the Karen Rebels on one side and the oppressive Burmese military regime in the other.
If you are a big fan of the Rambo movies, you probably know a great deal of trivia about those movies. This is where the similarities between those movies and the recent 2008 movie end. In all three of those movies, Rambo took on small armies single-handedly. One of his obvious trademarks was his survival knife. In First Blood, he used a Jimmy Lyle survival knife. What made this knife unique was that the handle was actually a container that held a built-in compass and useful items like matches and needle-and-thread. The latter was used for stitching up cuts and wounds, as was depicted in the movie. In the other two movies, he would use later models of the survival knife. Aside from Rambo, the only other recurring character was Colonel Trautman.
The 2008 movie was very different from the past movies. This movie put more of a human face on Rambo than in the previous movies. Rambo no longer fought alone. He fought alongside the mercenaries and the Karen Rebels. Instead of his trademark survival knife, he used a home-made machete that looked more at home in the kitchen as a meat cleaver, than as a combat knife. Absent from this movie is the character of Colonel Trautman. Richard Crenna would have reprised that role. Sadly, he passed away of cancer in 2003.
What I found somewhat unsettling was that this movie was not dedicated in his memory. (If you remember the James Bond movie The world is not Enough, that was Desmond Llewellyn’s final movie before his death in a car accident. The following James Bond movie was not dedicated in his memory. This left James Bond fans seething.) It had been rumored that actor James Brolin would play the role but little came of the idea.
It was originally assumed that this would be the final movie about Rambo. Because of the apparent success of the 2008 movie, another sequel is in the works. Will the character of Colonel Trautman return? Will this movie be dedicated in memory of Richard Crenna? That remains to be seen.
This entry is dedicated in memory of Richard Crenna.
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