Rambo: First Blood

 Don't push it...or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go!

 The first of the Rambo movies was released in October 1982 and starred Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennahy and Richard Crenna).  I really think you need to set this movie completely aside from what followed in the series.  Not that the subsequent movies were not entertaining, but they were pretty gory and fiercely pro-American.  Whereas, this original movie is pretty anti what the state of life was for Vietnam vets in the USA in the early 80's and is the only movie to have the action all in the USA.

The film was adapted from the novel by David Morrell, from 1972, so the issues in this movie must have been very appropriate at that time especially.  The screenplay was all over hollywood for years, with the movie only gaining any traction when Stallone was on board.  Having said that, almost every main man of that era was offered the role and turned it down, mainly on the grounds of violence.  Having said this, unlike the book, Rambo does not actually kill anyone, though he does injure them.

The movie was directed by Ted Kotcheff.  The production team included the super team of Andrew Vajna and Mario Kassar, who would go on to do Total Recall, Cliffhanger (also starring Stallone) and Basic Instint amongst many others.

The basic plot of the movie is simple, but powerful.  A troubled veteran is abused by an uncaring local sheriff (Teasle)) who wants him nowhere near his town and tries to force him out.  When Rambo pushes back, the sheriff arrests him.  Rambo is again assaulted in the police station and then escapes using his clearly deadly training to the local forest.  Despite the efforts of Rambo's old commander (Trautman) to persuade him to give himself up, Rambo goes deep undercover and, when hunted down by Teasle and his men, he systematically takes out all of the local forces using his survival skills and goes after Teasle.  Rambo is eventually arrested.

What I love about the movie is the way that you build up deep sympathy with Rambo's character and the powerful story of what war and the deadly training people go through can do to people when they are released into society.

Here is a great fan movie I came across, where a guy revisits the original locations (Hope, British Columbia) and Sly Stallone talks about the movie.

Great action sequences of course and Stallone in this movie starts a trend in subsequent movies of the main character hunting down someone on his own side or in authority who has wronged him as well as the character fighting what we would think of as the real enemy.  One thing that I read that was odd was a scene that they tried out on test audiences, where Rambo takes his own life.  They decided (correctly in my view) that this would run counter to the sympathy they had built up for the character and opted for the more hopeful ending.

The music from the movie was by the brilliant Jerry Goldsmith.

 If you have been at all put off by the Rambo series, I would heartily recommend this movie, which still has a lot of credibility and was voted one of Empire Magazines Top 500 movies of all time.