Rambo (2008)
Directed by Sylvester Stallone
In Thailand, ex-Green Beret John James Rambo joins a group of mercenaries to venture into war-torn neighboring Myanmar to rescue a group of Christian aid workers who have been kidnapped by a ruthless local infantry unit.
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20 films that influenced Rambo
What critics say influenced Rambo
…not a bad plot, having been used in such films as Tears of the Sun (2003) and probably most successfully in The Sand Pebbles (1966).
The men are a diverse crew (British actors Gavin McTavish as the bald and bold Lewis and Matthew Marsden as the likable sniper School Boy are especially memorable) of special-ops types who don't know yet how valuable their guide (Rambo) is, and their banter is a bit reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen -- albeit with a lot more expletives.
Like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Stallone is an idealist masquerading as a cynic, but when the Burmese Army captures and tortures a battalion of deeply annoying Bible-thumpers from Colorado, Stallone springs into action.
Rambo IV is the first in the series directed by Stallone himself, and it's Stallone's first stab at directing full-fledged action -- other than four of the Rocky sequels, Stallone's only previous forays behind the camera were the likable Paradise Alley (1978) and the notoriously bad Saturday Night Fever sequel, Staying Alive (1983).
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The end result of Rambo IV is akin to that of The Dead Pool (1988), the fifth (and probably final) Dirty Harry movie.
Aliens has a strange, mid-80s Rambo-like physicality to it, but it's couched in a reasonable and forgivable context.
When one thinks about Sylvester Stallone, two characters come to mind: Rocky and Rambo.
Made after the “Rocky” films had made Sylvester Stallone a bankable star, “Rambo: First Blood” (which was released simply as “First Blood,” gaining the “Rambo” title in subsequent video releases to remind viewers it was the first in the series) is based on the best-selling book about a Vietnam vet with his back to a wall.
"First Blood" may have signalled the beginning of the incredibly lucrative "Rambo" series but for Sylvester Stallone it represented his first success outside the "Rocky" franchise.
Some 26 years after creating one of the most famous characters of his career, Sylvester Stallone has revived John Rambo one last time for an explosive final chapter of the First Blood film series.
In that sense, Rambo was very similar to the soldiers in 1998's Soldier (with Kurt Russell)... a man programmed to be a killing machine who finds himself adrift when he's discarded or no longer needed.
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The men soon discover the enemy compound, setting the stage for what's probably the best, most violent action movie climax since The Wild Bunch.
It’s made the way hardcore action flicks were in the 1980s and early 90s – the era when even movies as innocent as “Back to the Future” would end with terrorist attacks just for the hell of it.