brilliantbrown

Earlier this week, I stated the blatantly apparent when I stated that Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was a horrible, horrible piece of non-art. Well, you can just call me Capt. Obvious, because I just finished watching John Rambo and I’ve got more of the same. Ready?

John Rambo is an incredibly violent movie… there I said it. Yeah. Anyone who knows anything about Rambo movies can tell you that. But the reason John Rambo is worth an entire review, and not just a twitter, is because in addition to being violent beyond my expectations, it’s actually pretty good.

The interesting thing about the violence is not the quantity, but rather the quality. Maybe it’s been too many years since I watched the previous 3 Rambo films; but while I remember them having a lot of fighting and shooting, I don’t remember any of the violent moments being as visceral as what I saw in the series’ latest film.

In the first scene of this film, we are introduced to a game the villains of the film play with their hostages. Land mines are tossed into a rice paddock and the hostages are forced to run through the shallow water while the villains place bets on which one will explode first. And when they explode it’s on screen and raw. Limbs go flying and blood is everywhere. It is madness.

Of the 90 minutes of this film’s runtime, only about half of it is fighting. The rest is spent introducing the characters and advancing the plot. I won’t really get into explaining the details of the plot, because it’s pretty simple. Rambo is living peacefully in Southeast Asia. Rambo is approached by missionaries seeking safe passage in to Burma. Rambo drops off missionaries, who are subsequently captured. Rambo leads team of mercenaries to save the missionaries. Characters are introduced, but not developed. Much blood is shed. We’ve seen this before.

Heads explode. Limbs are severed. Whole bodies disintegrate. Blood is spilled by the bucketful. This is a horrorshow level of gore. At one point, Rambo all but literally cuts a dude in half with a huge knife.

Is there a point?

The moral, if you will, is also the same as the rest of the series. “If you want to win a war, you have to become a war.” Essentially, a man is changed irreversibly by the violence of war.

I feel like this point was best illustrated in First Blood, the original Rambo film, but was muddied a bit in the second and third sequels. This fourth film, I feel, is a return to this core message. In the first film, the message was illustrated by the plot and explained through dialog. Because the character of Rambo is already developed and doesn’t really grow between the titles and the credits, in this latest chapter the message is primarily conveyed through the slightly exaggerated action sequences.

While I wouldn’t call John Rambo a masterpiece, I will say that it was much better than I expected. Metaphorically, this film is a hammer. It’s simple. It’s violent. It’s a blunt instrument, but it does one thing very well.