Rambo: First Blood Part II (1984)

 

            With the success of “First Blood”, a sequel was inevitable.  James Cameron wrote the first draft of the script, but Sylvester Stallone made a lot of tweaks and additions.  Cameron wanted a tech geek / wisecracker buddy (to be played by John Travolta), backstories for the POWs, and not much politics.  Stallone nixed the idea of a partner who gets the jokes and wanted the movie to have a “we left worthy warriors behind after a war we should have let them win” message.  George Cosmatos (“Escape to Athena”) was tabbed to direct.  The movie was dedicated to special effects man Clifford Wenger, Jr. who was killed by an explosion.  Stallone spent eight months of four hour days bulking up.  He took SWAT courses on combat, archery, and survival.  (Why do SWAT members need to know archery?)  The movie was filmed in Mexico and Thailand.  It was the first movie to open in more than 2,000 theaters.  It made over $300 million and is the most influential (and mockable) of the Rambo series, although its “cartoonish” nature made it Stallone’s least favorite of the series.

            The movie opens with the Rambo of the first film breaking rocks at a prison.  It’s one of those prisons that has good hair care.  He is released for a mission supervised by a bureaucrat (the villain de jour of 1980s action movies) named Murdock (Charles Napier in a role turned down by Lee Marvin).  Spoiler alert for those who have never seen an action movie:  Murdock is going to turn out to be a villain.  Back on board as the psycho-whisperer is Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna).  The mission is to recon a prison camp in Vietnam, but not to free anybody.  Just take pictures, don’t engage.  Delta Force will do the rescuing.  We get the obligatory gearing up scene which includes him putting film in the camera!  He is given all kinds of new tech equipment, but not shown how to use it because they read ahead in the script and know he will be losing his equipment when he parachutes.  No problem because Rambo tells Murdock:  “I've always believed that the mind is the best weapon.”  (Raise your hand if you associate Rambo with a great mind.)  He makes contact with a Vietnamese agent named Bo Cao (Singaporean-American Julia Nickson).  Although all he has is a bowie knife, a bow with explosive arrows, and his biceps, Bo and the brute head off to the camp.  74 kills later, Rambo has won the sequel to the Vietnam War and freed men who fought in a good cause.  And some villains get their just rewards.

            I was surprised to learn that Stallone admits this movie is not good.  He feels the reason is it is too cartoonish.  He doesn’t mention his laughable acting.  But he is actually the worst actor in the cast.  The villains may be mustache-twirling, but they are effective.  Erickson does a good job keeping a straight face, even though she was nominated for a Razzie.  She lost, but the Picture, Stallone, screenplay, and song (“Peace Is Our Life” by Frank Stallone) won.  Incredibly, the movie won an Oscar!  It was chosen for Best Sound Editing.  And no that was not recognition for editing out all of Rambo’s dialogue.  He may not speak much, but when he does its quotable.   

            It deserves its cult status because it is better than all the copies.  However, it is not better than it’s mockers, like “Hot Shots!”.  And the movie has a huge target on its back.  Parts of it look like a satire itself.  Rambo being strapped to a metal mattress and being electro-tortured is iconic and idiotic.  The movie also has some iconic lines like “To survive a war, you gotta become war.”  Rambo became war, if you consider war to be like a video game.  He slaughters the bad guys and explodes things on a big screen!  He may start with just a knife and bow, but he up-arms to a helicopter.  Much of the plot is mindless violence, but the movie doesn’t start the killing until the 34- minute mark.  The script does lay the groundwork pretty well.  And the mayhem is not as predictable as you would think.  Granted, if you see it for the first time in 2022, you will know what is going to happen because the plot points are now ingrained in our society.  It created many of the cliches of the prisoner of war rescue subgenre.

                The movie is more than just a movie.  It spawned several copycats and some parodies.  But its greatest influence was on the public’s perception of the war.  Stallone took Cameron’s script and turned it into a hawk’s wet dream.  One message is the veterans were screwed by their treatment after they returned.  This message was explored in the first movie.  The sequel adds the message that the rules of engagement restricted the tactics to the point that the grunts could not win the war.  The most famous line is “do we get to win this time?”  This message includes the criticism of the strategy of a limited war that was forced on the military by the politicians.  Murdoch exemplifies this message.  People (42 million tickets were sold in America) came out of theaters saying “fuck yeah, we should have won.”  The movie is a key part of the Lost Cause narrative.  It perpetuated the conspiracy theory that we left POWs behind.

                No one would call this movie a documentary, but is there any truth in it?  It is based on the belief that some of the 2,500 missing in action were actually prisoners in secret camps in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  Because of pressure from veterans, the Pentagon did plan a mission by the Delta Force.  This was scrubbed partly because ex-Col. Bo Gritz was roiling the waters with his private ingresses to locate secret camps.  Congress also put pressure, but a committee led by veterans John Kerry and John McCain determined that there were no Americans that had been left behind.

                “Rambo:  First Blood Part II” is not a good movie, but it is a must-see movie for guys.  It is part of the bucket list we were born with.  And when you see it, don’t lie and say you didn’t enjoy the death of Col. Padovsky (Steven Berkoff).  Or all the other explosions.

GRADE  =  C