Like a sniper's bullet ripping though flesh and bone, Sylvester Stallone's latest avenging kill em' all man-movie, Rambo, tears a hole though all sensibilities and artistic pretenses, making them explode in a shower of blood.
Written and directed by the aging action star, Rambo picks up 20 years after where the third installment of the series, appropriately titled Rambo III, left off. John Rambo, Vietnam War vet and walking dispenser of death, is living a peaceful life near the Thai-Burmese border. (Note, in real life the country is called Myanmar now, but somebody forgot to tell Stallone.)
Having kept himself in spectacular shape for two decades by catching snakes and shuttling people in his boat, Rambo is less than pleased when a group of American missionaries requests he take them upriver into Burma.
Possessed of saintly intentions, but operating on a level of common sense lower than Jessica Simpson, missionary cutie Sarah (Julie Benz) keeps at Rambo until he does what any slightly creepy, older man would do--turns to putty in her hands and agrees.
Interspersed throughout the first half of the film are scenes of unspeakable cruelty and violence on the part of the ruling military junta in Burma. By now, the audience is eager for good-old fashioned comeuppance-and Rambo delivers.
Having left the missionaries to their own devices, Rambo returns to the border, but his stay is temporary. Inevitably, their mission is ruined by a government attack. The missionaries still alive are kidnapped, causing Rambo to switch to kick-ass mode.
Teaming with a group of heartless missionaries, Rambo does what he does best: infiltrates, annihilates and proceeds to blow Burma to hell.
The violence in this film is sickening. I'm your normal guy as far as movies goes, and as such I feel Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan and 300 were all masterpieces of cinematography. The violence in those films served a point, and it does in this one as well. Even so, this one is hard to watch. Stallone wants to show that sometimes idealism and peace don't work and that violence is the only recourse against evil and oppression. Sparing no thought for those faint of heart, he takes that message to the extreme.
Rambo won't win Academy Awards. It is, however, decent for what it is. On one level it has merely cinematic appeal from an older male action star to his aged fans, but on another it serves as a nauseating reminder of the evil that is out there.
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