First Blood (1982)

Based on the novel by David Morrell
Written by Michael Kozoll & William Sackheim and Sylvester Stallone
Directed by Ted Kotcheff

Action films are possibly the most famous type of American movies, and First Blood is one of the films that really introduced people to the idea that an action film can involve helicopter crashes, big gunfights, and still have something more to say about society. In the 1970's action films were disaster movies, cop movies were Dirty Harry raw, and there was no such thing as a huge shoot out or large explosions.

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is an American hero, a Vietnam vet who survived his share of horrors in Southeast Asia, and now he's a drifter in a country where he doesn't feel welcome, and he's just out looking for his old friends from 'Nam. What he finds is most of them are dead, even the ones that survived the war died in later horrors in the 7 years that passed since the fall of Saigon. He wanders into the small town of Hope, Oregon, where Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) politely tells him to fuck off, that he'll give Rambo a ride to the next town. It's obvious the Sheriff doesn't want him around, but Rambo will have none of that, he feels betrayed because he has served his country in an unpopular war and still come out a hero. The problem is, he doesn't feel like much of a hero when towns don't want him around. So he defiantly stays, he says he just wants some food and then he'll be on his way. Not taking kindly to any drifter, Sheriff Teasle tells him to move on before he arrests him for vagrancy and other irregular charges. When Rambo continues to defy him, he is taken in under arrest.

When he's in the police station he snaps under the pressure when the police push him too far and he experiences flashbacks from the time of his imprisonment in Vietnam, he experiences the pain and vision of being tortured again, held behind bars against his will, and he can't take it. His psyche snaps and he lashes out with his primal instincts kicking, snapping, punching and destroying every cop that gets in his path. On the way out of the station he grabs his huge hunting knife with a compass on it, this is the only tool he'll need to survive in the woods for as long as he needs to.

Immediately the Sheriff and his men gear up to go hunt down the now-fugitive Rambo. They go out in full force, by helicopter, car, and by foot through the woods. The only problem is, this is Rambo's element. This is where he feels at home, where he knows how to kill, and exactly what traps he needs to set in order to defeat his enemies as they come into the forest after him.

When a few officers are killed in pursuit of Rambo, it becomes a major police event, with even the national guard joining the fray. Before long, Rambo's former superior officer, Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) has found out about the fracas and come out to Hope in an attempt to reign Rambo in. Once he's there, he's the only person Rambo will talk to, and even then he can't convince Rambo that the war is over and the damage is done. Rambo sees it as a still open issue, being the only surviving member of his unit has destroyed his psyche. Combine that with the fact that he's not crazy, he really is hated for his involvement in a war he was sent to against his will, and you've got a very dangerous man that sees no reason to stop killing.

Once the sheriff and his deputies think they have beaten Rambo when they cave-in a mine shaft that Rambo has retreated into, they are about to pack up and call it a day. Col. Trautman tells them that can't be, there's no way Rambo would die that easily. If only they had listened to Trautman. The last half hour turns this film from a masterfully suspenseful action film to a giant shoot-out in a sporting goods store where Rambo will make his last stand against the citizens of Hope, who, by the end of the night, he has successfully fought just about all of. This isn't a bad thing mind you, it's just a large deviation from how the beginning of the film started. This is why I say it influenced so many modern action movies, because it has so many different action set pieces, and it's one of the first movies where a shoot out ends everything.

The direction is superb the entire film. The composition, the use of space, and the way in which Kotcheff shoots the forest is a large portion of the reason why this film works. He is telling a story about Vietnam thematically, and he mirrors the terrain with the forests of Oregon. Emotionally, the sheriff and his deputies are the enemy that he experienced in Vietnam, and being pitted against them in similar terrain immediately drives him back to the dark places he dwelled while in Vietnam. The acting is good by everyone involved, although I have to say Stallone's is the worst easily. He either ushers words out in monotone, or he speaks while he's crying. Either way, it sounds like a large baby blubbering. The only good thing about that is he rarely speaks, most of the time we just follow his actions as he silently stalks people. I've heard the original cut of this movie was drastically different, Rambo had a lot more lines, but when Stallone saw that cut he absolutely hated it, and convinced them to let the other characters tell more of the story. I'm guessing this was probably because of his terrible acting. Either way, the movie works best the way it stands now.
 
8.8/10