Rambo (2008)

This was a strange one.

The fourth Rambo film follows much the same pattern as previous films, taking element from all three. Once again, Rambo is reluctantly brought out of a peaceful (but haunted) retirement, to fight for a political cause, rescuing prisoners of some kind. Suplanting Afhgan rebels for Burmese rebels and Vietnam vets for aid workers, the film is sort of an amalgam of First Blood Part II and Rambo III, only much darker in tone and graphic in depiction of violence.

The basic structure of post-First Blood Rambo movies so far as I can see is as follows:

- Rambo is begrudgingly taken out of retirement for one last mission, which is supposed to be clean and simple. (Take photos of POW camp, rescue Trautman, shuttle aid workers up river.)
- Things become more complicated, and Rambo realizes the larger importance of the fight or recognizes his further utility. (POWs need rescuing, the Afghan people need help, the aid workers are captured.)
- Rambo engages the enemy stealthily during the rescue attempt.
- Rambo engages the enemy (with help from his companions) graphically and completely un-stealthily to the point of all-out warfare.
- Rambo saves his companions, and retires again (sometimes bitterly).
- Over the course of the film, Rambo faces some kind of ideological or beaurocratic opposition, which he overcomes by proving the necessity of his methods in spite of their opposition. (The intelligence officer, his guide, the pacifist aid workers.)
- A political message of solidarity is made. (The USA let down Vietnam veterans, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan is wrong, the persecution of Karen rebels in Myanmar is wrong.)
- The necessity of violence to combat violence is restated and reaffirmed.

This roughly covers all three latter Rambo films, and some elements can be transposed onto First Blood also - certainly, one can see the genesis of these conventions. Rambo reintroduces these elements faithfully, but as noted above, the darker tone and vastly more disturbing visual representation of warfare seems to subvert it somewhat - or perhaps merely intensifies. As with Crystal Skull, repeat viewings will help to calcify these thoughts.