We're only 3 minutes into the film and I'm already taken aback. Stallone's voice is so weird in this movie. It's not as ridiculous as he's Rocky voice but it's not his default voice either. It's this weird hybrid between what was his natural voice and what would later become his iconic voice that you hear in some of the more ridiculous Rambo movies or that Judge Dredd movie.
He's even trying to do that awkward conversation piece that he always did in the original Rocky movie. But he just starts rambling on about weird stuff. Or his pockets being full of all types of junk. But contrast, it's just hard to get over.
Though in his defense he only has two big dialogue scenes. And the bookend the film.
Truly weird thing is seeing how people treat Rambo in this. He's an old Vietnam war vet.
And no one wants a single thing to do with him. They see him as a Drifter, a beggar, punk a problem. Just another one of those crazy fools who came back from a war that nobody wanted to acknowledge.
I think it's hard to express today the effect of Vietnam had on the American public. People think about the wars today in the Middle East. They see it occasionally on TV, stuck together, highly edited showing an occasional explosion. Maybe a soldier with a flag over his body to indicate that he's dead. But we don't film the war over there. Not like what we did in Vietnam. Every battle, every scene, every death. All the people involved from Soldier to civilian was seen on American television. And its sickened us, it scared us. We got to see what real war was like. And we ended up blaming all of our young men for the events that happened over there. We saw what they can do on screen and we wear fearful of what they would do back home. Like so many men who went into organized crime or became a police officer after the second world war. But we didn't know what they could do, no one filmed it.
It's strange in a way. Rambo first Blood is the least action-packed of all the Rambo films. And yet it's the most exciting, it knows where to build up tension and when to hold back. And it's not Rambo versus an army militia or group of trained killers . It's just a local police force (not even all that impressive of a police force). Even the army that gets called in are mainly just volunteers. The biggest fret is the Colonel and he doesn't do anything. All he does is advised the other man of what to do and none of them take heed. Then you have ''Sheriff Will Teasle'' he's the only guy with any true ambition to stop him. With his own selfish reason and he's not a super soldier. He's an overweight Sheriff.
The very reason Rambo went insane in the first place. Though with the way he was acting it's possible he would have broken at some other point.
And then there's the ending. When Rambo finally breaks down and acknowledges how all this Friends Are Dead in the whores of Vietnam it's gotten to him. No one like them no one cared about him and he's left feeling an open Broken Man. Makes me wonder how anybody could look at Rambo and think , there's the great Action Hero what a man. He's not a man he's a broken body whatever Soul was in an initially has been drained out. The last vested interest in his heart rotted away when his friend died of cancer.
The film got me thinking. People often claim that the Western is dead. I don't think this is the case, I think all these modern Macho Man action films from the late 70s into the early 90s where in their own way a continuation of the western. A one man versus the world kind of story. Loads of guns, betrayal and the occasional over the top villain. Leaving have the occasional showdown between the two juggernauts (the protagonist and the antagonist)
Truly weird thing is seeing how people treat Rambo in this. He's an old Vietnam war vet.
And no one wants a single thing to do with him. They see him as a Drifter, a beggar, punk a problem. Just another one of those crazy fools who came back from a war that nobody wanted to acknowledge.
I think it's hard to express today the effect of Vietnam had on the American public. People think about the wars today in the Middle East. They see it occasionally on TV, stuck together, highly edited showing an occasional explosion. Maybe a soldier with a flag over his body to indicate that he's dead. But we don't film the war over there. Not like what we did in Vietnam. Every battle, every scene, every death. All the people involved from Soldier to civilian was seen on American television. And its sickened us, it scared us. We got to see what real war was like. And we ended up blaming all of our young men for the events that happened over there. We saw what they can do on screen and we wear fearful of what they would do back home. Like so many men who went into organized crime or became a police officer after the second world war. But we didn't know what they could do, no one filmed it.
It's strange in a way. Rambo first Blood is the least action-packed of all the Rambo films. And yet it's the most exciting, it knows where to build up tension and when to hold back. And it's not Rambo versus an army militia or group of trained killers . It's just a local police force (not even all that impressive of a police force). Even the army that gets called in are mainly just volunteers. The biggest fret is the Colonel and he doesn't do anything. All he does is advised the other man of what to do and none of them take heed. Then you have ''Sheriff Will Teasle'' he's the only guy with any true ambition to stop him. With his own selfish reason and he's not a super soldier. He's an overweight Sheriff.
The very reason Rambo went insane in the first place. Though with the way he was acting it's possible he would have broken at some other point.
And then there's the ending. When Rambo finally breaks down and acknowledges how all this Friends Are Dead in the whores of Vietnam it's gotten to him. No one like them no one cared about him and he's left feeling an open Broken Man. Makes me wonder how anybody could look at Rambo and think , there's the great Action Hero what a man. He's not a man he's a broken body whatever Soul was in an initially has been drained out. The last vested interest in his heart rotted away when his friend died of cancer.
The film got me thinking. People often claim that the Western is dead. I don't think this is the case, I think all these modern Macho Man action films from the late 70s into the early 90s where in their own way a continuation of the western. A one man versus the world kind of story. Loads of guns, betrayal and the occasional over the top villain. Leaving have the occasional showdown between the two juggernauts (the protagonist and the antagonist)
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