‘Rambo’ restores Stallone’s signature character to a near-original essence

Despite his conspicuously disparaging remark about his signature character John Rambo in a 1989 action-film parody called Tango and Cash, Sylvester Stallone has remained loyal to the role over the long stretch. His writer–director–star hitch on a new Rambo (opening Jan. 25) cinches such loyalty with a generously entertaining job of ferocious filmmaking.

The Rambo franchise stems from Ted KotcheffÂ’s First Blood (1982), which established the character as a misunderstood veteran of Vietnam, driven to a state of resourceful rebellion by a bullying law officer. Through George P. CosmatosÂ’ Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Peter McDonaldÂ’s gratuitous Rambo 3 (1988), Stallone took charge as a screenwriter, as well, driving the role to extremes that might have been unthinkable to the survival-driven John Rambo of the first film.

Such sequelized excesses — coupled with the increasing self-indulgence of Stallone’s parallel series of Rocky prizefighter movies — have contributed immeasurably to the popular misperception of the actor as a muscle-bound hooligan with an appetite for mayhem. Now, 20 years after the last Rambo escapade, Stallone restores the role to something nearer its original conception — not unlike his accomplishment with a valedictory Rocky sequel of 2006.

“The thing you gotta remember about Sly,” a lifelong pal and fellow actor named Joe Spinell (1936–1989) said of Stallone during the 1980s, “is that he ain’t who he plays. He’s an artist of calculating intelligence and good humor, and a lot of the violence that the audiences take at face-value in these Rambo pictures — that’s Sly’s satirical response to the excessive tastes of the marketplace.

“He’s seein’ how far he can push things over the edge before our [filmmaking] industry snaps back to more of a normal state of leavin’ things up to the viewers’ imaginations,” added Spinell. “Not to mention that both of us get a kick out of baiting the would-be censors and the [Motion Picture Association’s] Ratings Administration.” Spinell, whose teamings with Stallone include the earlier Rocky pictures of 1976–1979, is best remembered as a mob assassin-turned-government witness in the first two Godfather films (1972–1974).

The new Rambo finds Stallone’s iconic character in long retreat to Southeast Asia as a riverboat operator. Though resigned to a peaceable life on the fringes of persistent unrest along the Burmese borderlands, Rambo finds that his reputation as a jungle-savvy fighting man precedes him — to the extent that a missionary expedition (including Julie Benz and Paul Schulze) enlists him as the only soul capable of shepherding them past a minefield toward a refugee encampment.

Stallone invests the role with a realistic acceptance of the aging process, and with traces reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart in 1951’s The African Queen and Clint Eastwood in 1992’s Unforgiven — to say nothing of the influences that the original First Blood had absorbed from Marlon Brando in 1953’s The Wild One and Tom Laughlin in 1971’s Billy Jack.

The new Rambo kicks into gear when a preacher named Marsh (played by Ken Howard) informs John Rambo that the original party of human-rights workers has gone missing. Rambo wants nothing to do with any combative rescue missions — but he also understands that no ordinary mercenaries whom the Rev. Mr. Marsh might hire could succeed at such a task. Whereupon Rambo resumes the reluctant-warrior stance, on the side of the angels.

The savory irony of Stallone’s original screenplay may not be obvious to new viewers unaware of the time when the Rambo phenomenon, a generation ago, found itself widely condemned from the pulpit. Granted, the commercial merchandising of the character — including toys, a TV-cartoon series and a video-game version of the middle 1980s — over-emphasized the more violent aspects, which even the more excessive big-screen Rambo adventures had tempered with characterizing touches.

But in reaching back to the original concept, Stallone has capped his starring series with a thoughtful and provocative presentation that nonetheless delivers a wealth of jarring action. The 1982 First Blood, after all, had impressed many viewers as a fictionalized follow-up to such government-financed military films as 1948Â’s Shades of Gray, which addresses the psychological complexities of helping war veterans re-adjust to civilian life.

Some of us had known all along that John Rambo was a smarter character than corporate Hollywood wanted him to be. (R)

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