John Rambo
February 15th, 2008
If you are considering going to see John Rambo because you love gory violence or you’re a gun nut or you think that movie violence is designed to glorify war or violence then please don’t bother.
You will miss the fucking point, and very likely will never get the point.
John Rambo is rated R but it shouldn’t be because of the very graphic violence of which there is a lot of. It should be rated R because it deals with an extremely harsh reality that frankly no child should ever have to be aware of but every adult needs to.
What humans are capable of doing to each other is simply horrific and in John Rambo it is laid out bare with no warm and fuzzy in sight. It is presented in a graphic and blinding light in this film.
I’m the first to admit I know very little about the situation in Burma, I know that those protestors were slaughtered:
A SENIOR Burmese intelligence official claims thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle. source
I have read, since watching this film about the experiences of the children who have been forcibly drafted into the army and the atrocities that they have witnessed. Children.
Some may criticise the film John Rambo for its heavy handed approach to the violence and again there are reasons why this film is rated R and no children should watch it. It is this graphic death and destruction that makes the film a success because there is simply no other way to effectively show this scenario. In order to get the message across it has to reach out of the screen and smack you in the face with its blatant horror and the miserable, terrible existence that these people live in.
I have seen some movie violence in my time and this film is in a whole other class on its own. It is an assault on your senses. The Reviewer (who I highly recommend and enjoy reading) probably sums it up best:
There were bits of bad guys flying all over the place. Things getting shot off, blown off, ripped off, cut off, in the end there were more pieces of people than people in the movie. source
This didn’t have to be a Rambo film, but I think it is nice that it was. Like dropping in on an old friend to see how he’s doing and after Stallone’s revisit to his other iconic character in Rocky Balboa I was really interested to see what he did in this one.
In fairness the plot is small and overshadowed by the action, some of the characters are clearly caricatures of reality although I have seen that burning optimism in the eyes of missionaries who shall fear no evil in the real world so maybe that’s the point being made. Some of the acting matches the plot in its limitations. Stallone it must be said as Rambo is a forceful presence in this film.
The bottom line though is that the plot and even the acting comes second to experiencing the horror and hopefully becoming aware that these things do happen in the world and that they shouldn’t and that we shouldn’t ignore it. We should be outraged.
Strong message from a film that had the potential to be a joke or at the very least dismissable.
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Categories: Movies | Tags: atrocities, burma, graphic violence, john rambo, jungle, stallone
My problem is the producers seemed to have sold the movie as a rip-roaring action movie and didn’t really make it clear that it had deeper implications.
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This is a fundamental problem with movie promoters in Hollywood MC, they did the same thing with Three Kings whose underlying commentary on America’s involvement in the original Desert Storm was ignored by the trailers and replaced with a fun American romp in Iraq with three rogues out to have a good time and get some money.
If they’re not treating us like idiots in the actual movie then they are doing so in the trailers. Not that there aren’t any brilliant ones of course!!
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to be perfectly honest I didn’t think 3 kings was a very deeeeep movie. I liked it, but the way the movie brought the message, it was more of a fun side message to an action movie.
Oh and thanks..now I got to see John Rambo too *adds it to the list*.
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Oh I’d disagree on Three Kings, I think the message was deep enough without having to look for it too hard for it. A lot of the fun stuff I suppose is just as much a comment on western society - the simpson’s doll strapped to the front of a tank (or jeep or whatever military vehicle was) for example.
Rambo is most certainly worth it so do add it to the list.
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