First Blood Review

 

        Sylvester Stallone is in my opinion the best action star to really evolve his craft. He became famous for his portrayal of boxer Rocky Balboa in the Rocky franchise. Little did anyone else know is that he partially wrote the script. With First Blood, the first entry in the Rambo franchise Stallone co-writes along with two other writers. This film is now part of my favorite movies that I have seen. 

1. John Rambo

        I have to stress this whenever I research a film, but First Blood is based on a book. Written by David Morrell, I have not sat down and read the book and I found out that Stallone reworked the script to make Rambo more sympathetic. Anyways, we see John roaming around the outskirts of Washington state. He finds the location his buddy from the Army lives, only to be told by a family member that he died. 

        From there, Rambo walks on the side of the highway and makes it to Hope, Washington. The sheriff of the town Will Teasle sees him and thinks he’s a drifter. In a matter of moments, he escorts him out of the town since he believes he might cause trouble. John walks back to the town and Teasle has him arrested. When Rambo is being processed inside the police department, the police abuse him which causes his flashbacks when he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. 

        Ultimately, he escapes and runs to the woods with the police following him. This isn’t your typical action movie, especially since it’s from the 80s. It’s a more subdued one since there isn’t a body count. Only one death, but in Rambo’s defense is that it was by accident. What makes the character work is that he holds back. We’re told in different times in the movie where Rambo could’ve slaughtered them. It’s the abusive power that the officers did to him that makes him go overboard. 

2. Stealth

        The main highlight is the action since it’s not overt. The use of stealth is smartly utilized since Rambo hides in the forest from the police officers. We later learn that he used to be a Green Beret which makes everything he does like make traps and just survive make sense. It’s refreshing that the action isn’t the usual firefight or just a fist fight since, if the action is too drawn out it would be boring. 

        When the officers are searching the entire forest for John, most of them are scared since they really don’t want to encounter him. For instance, most of the officers are distracted when one of them lands on Rambo’s trap, they try to help the poor cop. Especially when the sergeant is caught by Rambo and he puts his knife on his neck. 

        Overall, the action is restrained which works since Rambo never says any stupid catchphrases. In fact, during an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Stallone spoke that he wanted his recorded lines to be cut since he didn’t believe that the movie would be any good. That’s why he doesn’t say much until the end. Which we will get into.  

3. Authority

        Another thing that I noticed is that authority from both officers and the Colonel are completely different. As I mentioned earlier, the police give John a lot of abuse. Like restraining him with a night stick. It seems like the cops are like that with the criminals inside the town’s police department. Like this one officer Galt, who really asserts his authority too much on Rambo. When he pushes off the officers, it gets personal for the officer since he wasn’t expecting that. It boils over when he is a shooter on a helicopter. Sherriff Teasle tells him that they are supposed to capture him. So Galt keeps blasting. 

        A while after that we see Colonel Trautman, a superior for Rambo when they were in stationed. He tells the Sherriff that they can’t stop John. It inevitably turns into a power of wits of who has the bigger authority. Trautman doesn’t yell and it really rubs Teasle the wrong way when his pride goes up. Just like Galt, he wants to kill Rambo. The representation is that Teasle wants to be the hero of the town but takes an extreme measure to do so.

        One last thing is just how underprepared the police and the national guard are when they are attempting to get John Rambo. This is probably another instance where I’m stretching here, but I feel that this is supposed to be like Vietnam. Instead of the jungle its in the forest. Rambo just outsmart everyone. It gets to a point where the other officers are arguing that they don’t want to continue even the national guards have doubts about Rambo. 

4. The Final Scene

        This is my favorite part of the film. Everything leads up back to the town. Rambo shoots the powerlines which has the town plundered in darkness. He tries to find the Sheriff and vice versa. Both of them are in the police department and John shoots the Sheriff, he wants the veteran to kill him. The colonel comes in and tells him the whole thing is over. Rambo then lets it out to his superior. Saying that the civilians were yelling to him that he was a baby killer. Just airing out his grievance with being back as a civilian.

        From there, we see something that is really taboo in 80s action films, the main protagonist crying. He tells Trautman that his friends are gone and they wanted to go to Vegas when everything was done. You just have to feel bad since, he just wants be in a place of normalcy. Just the shot with Rambo crying to the Colonel is something that wouldn’t happen in any action film, even today. 

5. Overall 

        First Blood is unlike any action film you’ve seen. Yes, it did spawn sequels, but they don’t come close to being this good. 

First Blood gets a four out of five.