Rambo (2008)
Podcast coming soon…
Note: I don’t usually go out of my way to watch movies that are certificated 18A, but was intrigued by this movie which was being billed as a violent action movie with Christian themes running throughout. This review contains some content that may be considered unsuitable for younger readers.
“Live for nothing, or die for something!” John Rambo
These seemingly pro-Christian words are not preached by any prominent church leader, but gruffly spoken by the character John Rambo – not to a group of Christians, but to a bunch of mercenaries in Rambo, a sequel of sorts to the action flicks First Blood parts 1,2 & 3.
However, he’s not trying to inspire the mercenaries – in this scene he has several guns pointed at him whilst he himself is holding a drawn arrow to the head of the leader of the mercenaries, a showdown of sorts. But his words do spur the mercenaries onwards to complete a daring rescue mission that they were hired to carry out – the rescue of several Christian missionaries in one of the most troubled and violent places on earth, Burma, in Southeast Asia. And because these several highly trained mercenaries, including the titular character, are going up against over one hundred soldiers of the Burmese military junta you just know there’s going to be plenty of bloodshed, gunfire, explosions, violence and death. The truth is, at this point in the movie the viewer has already been privy to some pretty violent and haunting scenes, more than hinting at the ultra violence that is to follow.
But nothing could have prepared me for the sheer amount of violence in Rambo.
In the opening scene we watch as hapless Karen tribesmen are forced to play an extreme game of Russian roulette; Burmese soldiers throw land mines into a paddy field and then force their frightened prisoners to run through the field. No more than 30 seconds into the movie we are introduced to the graphic violence that will play a huge role in Rambo, as one of the unlucky villagers steps on a land mine exploding in full gory detail. The others who made it safely to the other side of the field are then mowed down in a hail of bullets. The camera then pans across to introduce us to the movies main antagonist, the evil general of the Burmese army, if you can call a bunch of callous murderers, rapists, and sadistic torturers, an army.
After this thankfully brief and unsettling intro the movie picks up where Rambo III left off; John Rambo still resides in a village in Thailand near the Burmese border. For a living he captures snakes for tourist shows and transports roamers in his boat. It’s not long into the movie when a group of missionaries approach Rambo and ask him to take them up the river to Burma. Their intentions are to take Bibles, aid, and medicine to a small village of Karen people. Rambo bluntly refuses, saying it would be sheer suicide. However, he is convinced by the only female member of the mission group, Sarah Miller, to take them up river.
Shortly thereafter, in one tense scene, Rambo and crew are stopped by Burmese river pirates who, after noticing Sarah, demand her in exchange for safe passage. After negotiations fail, Rambo kills all the pirates, much to the chagrin of the missionaries, especially Sarah’s very vocal husband, Michael. With Michael held by the throat Rambo explains his actions by reasoning “they would have raped her 50 times and then cut all your (expletive deleted) heads off!” Justified words, I thought, after all they didn’t just want to play a few rounds of golf.
After the group arrives at their destination Michael says that they will be going out by road and will not need Rambo’s help for the return trip; he is still a little sore at Rambo for killing the pirates. The mission goes well until the village is attacked by the Burmese army, who kill one missionary, and most of the villagers. The rest of the missionary group is then rounded up and forcibly taken as prisoners.
When the missionaries fail to come back after 10 days, their pastor comes to Rambo, tells him that he fears the worst, and asks for his assistance in guiding a group of hired men, “mercenaries,” to the village where the missing missionaries were last seen. Rambo decides to accompany the mercenaries and pushes them to continue after they have a run in with some Burmese soliders and witness the destroyed village and the bodies everywhere.
What follows is part stealth rescue mission followed by all out war, featuring some of the most extreme ultra violence my eyes have ever laid witness to. I won’t go into too much detail, let’s just say that when people are shot, stabbed and so on, it’s not as neat and tidy as Hollywood has depicted in the past. The violence in Rambo looks and feels very real, much in the same way as movies like Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Savior, and more recently, Flags of Our Fathers.
If you haven’t seen the previous entries in the series then some scenes will be lost on you, such as the scene in which Rambo battles with who he is with flashbacks from the previous three installments of the Rambo story. Also you may not understand just why Rambo has all but given up on goodness and life at the start of the movie.
Stallone plays John Rambo very convincingly, after all it’s a character that he made his own. Many action heroes come and go, but there’s only one Rambo. And like his final chapter to the Rocky story, at the end of the movie there is finality to it all. Scratching for words I’ll put it this way… if this is the final Rambo movie, then he went out with a bang! And like Rocky Balboa, Rambo seems at once desperate, yet earnest. You can’t help but feel for both characters, after all between them they have been through so much, and there is a feel good factor in that both characters can now, hopefully experience some amount of peace.
But the question remains, how much is too much?
Admittedly, I found the violence extremely disturbing. However, it’s not played for laughs, as it is in many of today’s hyper-edited, CGI’d action films. There’s something melancholy and unsettling about the carnage, and its aftermath. And unlike the majority of violent action flicks there are some extremely positive and moving moments to be found in Rambo. One scene has Sarah challenging Rambo to see that things can be changed if only we would do something proactive to help. In another scene the missionaries are seen helping the sick and wounded, as well as reading Scripture to them. And the fact that Rambo is willing to lay down his live for people he hardly knows is right out of Scripture, and unlike the mercenaries he’s not getting paid.
Another really touching scene comes at the very end of the movie when Rambo returns home to his father for the first time since originally leaving for Vietnam back in the 1970’s. I don’t know for sure, but I think this may actually be an allusion to Stallone’s own conversion and return to his heavenly Father a few years back.
As I understand it Stallone wanted to include some of his beliefs and faith into the movie. “I believe that you can have a Christian theme, but you can’t hit it too heavy. You can’t hit ‘em over the head with a hammer. You have to be subtle about it.” Sylvester Stallone, The Catholic Herald
It’s a shame the violence wasn’t more subtle and then maybe the Christian themes he so carefully weaved into the story would have come through a lot stronger and clearer. Instead, the hammer he was afraid to hit over the heads of the audience gets literally rammed into the heads of his enemies in the movie, and I’m not referring to the hammer of faith!
So what of the gobs and gobs of violence? Internet review site The Bloodshot Eye wrote, “Despite the odd stab at poignancy, “Rambo” is essentially pornographic in nature: It stimulates the audience’s (blood)lust, while also making viewers feel somewhat dirty about their instinctive response.” I’m not sure whether I would go that far, but I do question how much is too much? I understand that to tell a story like this there needs to be a fair amount of violence, but again, how far is too far? After all, the movie Proof of Life was similar in plot, but the violence, although present, was minimal in comparison to Rambo, yet was a far better movie for it.
It would be fair to say that there are two schools of thought out there when it comes to this movie:
1) The violence was unnecessarily brutal and no-one should have to sit through extended scenes of gratuitous violence
2) The violence serves a higher purpose in that it shows what is actually happening in the world around us, outside of our comfort zones, and that war is not pretty in the slightest.
In response, Stallone has been quoted as saying that he hopes Rambo will shed some light on the troubles raging in war ravaged Burma. “Burma is the most savage, pumped up, brutal human rights violation in the world. Burma is the largest genocide in the world. The civil war’s been going on for 60 years. As we speak people are going through hell. And I thought I’d also like to do something that sheds light on it.” Sylvester Stallone, The Catholic Herald
I would have to say that I probably still need some time to unpack Rambo. I can’t say I enjoyed it, per say, but it did make me thankful to God for the freedoms I enjoy on a daily basis. I thank the Lord that my children will hopefully never see this kind of violence and inhumanity up close and personal as so many have. Also, after watching this movie, I have a new found respect for missionaries, those courageous men and women who give up everything risking life and limb to go to those less fortunate with life saving medicine, and in due course share the soul saving Word of God with them.
One movie reviewer stated that the missionaries went to make a difference and that ultimately they should have listened to Rambo at the beginning of the movie when he said “You will change nothing.”
However, I was challenged by the scenes of the missionaries in the Karen village tending to the ill and wounded, and sharing the Word of God with them. Shortly thereafter the village is a blazing inferno and most of the villagers lay dead or dying, the life from their mortal bodies snuffed out forever. But what of their eternal souls? What if in those few short moments before the village was attacked some of those villagers gave their lives to Christ. They may have lost their earthly lives but gained eternity?
The violence may have been extreme and somewhat unnecessary, the story short on plot, and the Christian idea’s buried beneath piles and piles of bodies, but Rambo wasn’t a total loss. If you are able to watch movies and read between the lines, you may come away, dare I say it, slightly confused, but blessed and thankful none-the-less. Otherwise you may only see the gore and come away wondering why you wasted your money and time.
Christian St John
January, 2009
