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Uncle Sam and the Frankenstein Monster, the war at home (cf. Hill's Southern Comfort). Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) comes to Hope and discovers he's the last one left of his old Vietnam platoon, his brooding is interrupted by the sheriff (Brian Dennehy) who sees "just another smartass drifter." Abuse at the police station triggers flashbacks of Vietcong torture, he breaks out and finds refuge in the nearby woods, the jungle where he regains the violent balance that eludes him in civilian life. "You sure picked one hell of a guy to mess around with." Jerkwater U.S.A., the new battleground. Not yet the bellicose icon of the sequels, Rambo is here a short-circuiting bazooka—his trail of destruction has National Guard nitwits shivering in the bushes, the Army Colonel (Richard Crenna) arrives at the scene and can't quite conceal his pride in the technique of the Green Beret he's whelped. As befits a tale of ingrown conflict, Ted Kotcheff lays out the guerrilla action in Panavision constructions derived from Anthony Mann: Craggy ravines are arduously climbed, the bowels of a cave are swarming with rodents, only explosions illuminate the darkness engulfing the obliterated town. Miller's Lonely Are the Brave and Flynn's Rolling Thunder are key precedents, pulled into the Eighties to give lie to Reagan's optimism ("Have a Coke and a smile," advises the billboard outside the shattered building) until the hero's climactic peroration yields to a Pietà. "Remember my forgotten man," goes the song, "You put a rifle in his hand / You sent him far away / You shouted, 'Hip hooray!' / But look at him today." The original ending was a parody of Of Mice and Men, the deranged Hercules instead goes on to become the decade's poster-boy for patriotic slaughter. With Jack Starrett, Bill McKinney, Michael Talbott, Chris Mulkey, John McLiam, Alf Humphreys, and David Caruso.
--- Fernando F. Croce |