Before I really get started with this week’s column, I’d just like to say a few words about the Heath Ledger situation. I was absolutely stunned by the news of his death this week, and I know rumors are still flying, but to think that it may have just been an accidental overdose is really very sad. I’ve always admired Ledger’s career and acting choices. Even if he was in a bad film, it always seemed as if his choices were riskier than many of his contemporaries.
When he could have just been doing more Teen movies after the success of 10 Things I Hate About You, he instead favored roles in movies such as The Patriot and The Four Feathers. He just seemed like an actor that kept finding roles that pushed the limits of his screen persona, such as his Oscar nominated role in Brokeback Mountain, and it looked too, as if his popularity was about to explode as the Joker this summer in The Dark Knight. Now though, it all seems moot. It’s just a really sad situation and tragic end to what could have been real big screen immortality.
With all that said, it seems weird to go on with this week’s column, but I suppose the show must go on. Friday night, one of my childhood heroes came back to the big screen as Rambo opened up and mowed down every bad guy in sight, giving the tyrants of Burma an old school butt kicking. I couldn’t be happier about Johnny Rambo’s big screen return.
You see, as a child, once I’d started to grow out of my constant Star Wars and Superman hero worship, my adolescent years had me gravitating towards Action heroes, and one of the biggest heroes of the day was Rambo. Being a military guy, my Dad loved the Rambo films, and I followed suit. Also, this period saw Rambo get his own cartoon series and toy line, which instantly fueled my fire. I’ve always found it hilarious that one of the most violent Action heroes of all time got his own animated series and Action figures where he could give the forces of evil “A war they wouldn’t believe.”
The animated series came and went, but my soft spot for these movies has never really waned. Even as I’ve gotten older and seen how the sequels haven’t aged the way First Blood or many other Action films of the day have, I still get a kick out of Rambo retroactively winning Vietnam over and over. In many ways, he was the quintessential Action hero of the 1980’s and helped define what that type of cinema was all about during that era.
Rambo III Starring Sylvester Stallone and Richard Crenna. Directed by Peter MacDonald
A funny thing happened recently to me as I was watching the new Tom Hanks film, Charlie Wilson’s War. I was sitting there watching the movie, which is about the U.S. secretly arming the Afghans during their war with the Soviet Union, and I had this odd feeling of déjà vu. In the film’s scenes depicting the Russian helicopters wiping out the Afghanistan countryside, I knew I’d seen similar scenes before. Russian helicopters from the period don’t look like any other choppers, and I couldn’t quite place it.
Then finally it hit me; I’d seen them in Rambo III.
Oddly enough, the two movies do share some similar themes. Both films are about the U.S. covertly trying to help Afghanistan in order to stop Soviet expansion. Both show the proud Afghans fighting tooth and nail with the communists on horseback, without the benefit of modern weaponry. Only one film though, begins with an eskrima fight in which two combatants go at each other in an epic stick fighting contest.
To watch Sylvester Stallone in this movie is to see him at his physical peak. There’s a story that Richard Crenna’s Colonel Trautman tells Rambo in the film about a sculptor that shapes a statue out of a piece of stone. Looking at Stallone, you would think he was sculpted from the same piece of granite. It’s nearly insane how muscular the man looks, especially compared to the Stallone from the first Rocky or even from the sequels. Then on top of that, we get an incredible fight scene, in which Rambo shows off some martial arts skills which we’ve never really seen from him up to that point.
The plot of the movie feels pretty familiar, as Rambo is reluctant to jump into the fight between the Russians and Afghanistan, but when his mentor Trautman is captured when standing in for him, he immediately jumps into action. By “jumping into action”, I mean traversing the desert to meet up with a tribe of Afghan warriors, single-handedly destroy a few Russian gunships and then bust into the Ruskie stronghold where his best friend is being tortured. Admittedly, this action takes a little longer to get going in this one than it does in any of the other two films, but when it shows up, it shows up big.
Now, it would be pretty easy to declare that Rambo III is the worst movie of the entire franchise. First Blood is a bonafide Action classic, and the second film probably contains the character’s most iconic moments, for better or for worse. The movie is also one of the most dated Action flicks of the entire decade, even being dedicated to “The Proud People of Afghanistan” at the end of the picture. This third movie simply can’t lay claim to the first movie‘s serious tone or the second’s ridiculously visceral “balls to the wall“ attitude, but that’s not to say the movie’s comic book style doesn’t have merit.
If I were to tell you that Rambo III isn’t fun, I would be lying. First off, knowing now that Stallone gets one more performance as a more solemn version of the character, I kind of like that he lightened the character up a bit here. In fact, I think it’s fairly easy to be taken aback by just how funny Rambo is this time out. After he and Trautman are on the run from the Commies out in the desert in the film‘s last third, Rambo III even almost comes dangerously close to being a buddy movie at times.
Still, the movie does offer up some adrenaline pumping 80’s style action, especially when a group of Russians drop a zipline down to their doom where Trautman and Rambo are waiting for them. The sequence harkens back to similar sequences in the first two movies, but stands alone by making good use of the rocky terrain. Original Director Russell Mulcahy was fired for creative differences on the picture, but his replacement Peter MacDonald does an admirable job here coordinating the chaos. While not as over the top as its counterpart in Part 2, the sequence does a better job of showing a more realistic environment, never making Rambo into an almost supernatural figure.
The film’s opening fight also stands as Stallone’s best one on one fight scene outside of the Rocky movies. According to Stallone, the stunt man hired to try and take some of the strain of the scene off of the star, got leveled during filming and Sly had to go it alone in there. Knowing the actor’s commitment to reality, and how much punishment he took filming some of the scenes in the Rocky series, its hard to imagine just how many real blows he took in the scene, which is probably the signature sequence for the martial art.
Where the movie probably falters the most is in its villains. Marc de Jonge is horribly forgettable at the Soviet commander that tortures Trautman. He just seems like a really generic Russian villain, especially after the flamboyant scenery chewing of Brian Denehy, Charles Napier, and Steven Berkoff from the first two films. He doesn’t even seem as sadistic as Jack Starrett’s Deputy Galt from the first movie. Really, the most memorable thing that the heavy does in this film is ask Rambo “Who are you?” just so John can answer “Your worst nightmare!”
Much better is the bad ass stylings of Richard Crenna as Colonel Sam Trautman. Sure, he gets captured in this one, but his role is basically the same; stand there and tell everyone else just how bad ass Rambo is. Then we get to see Rambo live up to those expectations. My favorite line of the movie actually belongs to Trautman during an exchange with Marc de Jonge’s Zaysen when the Russian General asks “Who do you think this man is? God?” and Trautman replies, “No. God would have mercy. He won’t.” Crenna also gets to join in with some of the action in this one, as he has a decent role in the movie’s final massive battle.
At $63 Million at the time of its release, Rambo III was actually the most expensive film even made at that point. While films with inflated budgets like that usually don’t live up to expectations, this one still manages to be mighty entertaining, and at least a guilty pleasure when watched today. The movie may not end up having the following of its predecessors or the last film of the series, the movie still manages to bring the action goods when it counts, and makes for a great way to have fun during a Rambo Marathon.
