John Rambo has retreated to northern Thailand, where he''s running a longboat on the Salween River. On the nearby Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border, the world''s longest-running civil war, the Burmese-Karen conflict, rages into its 60th year. But Rambo, who lives a solitary, simple life in the mountains and jungles fishing and catching poisonous snakes to sell, has long given up fighting, even as medics, mercenaries, rebels and peace workers pass by on their way to the war-torn region. That all changes when a group of human rights missionaries search out the American river guide John Rambo. When Sarah and Michael Bennett approach him, they explain that since last year''s trek to the refugee camps, the Burmese military has laid landmines along the road, making it too dangerous for overland travel. They ask Rambo to guide them up the Salween and drop them off, so they can deliver medical supplies and food to the Karen tribe. After initially refusing to cross into Burma, Rambo takes them, dropping off Sarah, Michael and the aid workers. Less than two weeks later, pastor Arthur Marsh finds Rambo and tells him the aid workers did not return and the embassies have not helped locate them. He tells Rambo he''s mortgaged his home and raised money from his congregation to hire mercenaries to get the missionaries, who are being held captive by the Burmese army. Although the United States military trained him to be a lethal super soldier in Vietnam, decades later Rambo''s reluctance for violence and conflict are palpable, his scars faded, yet visible. However, the lone warrior knows what he must do.
Oh my god, who on earth ever thought John Rambo would ever grace the big screen again? Lord knows I didn’t but I’m incredibly happy he did. The action movies today have come a long, long way since the 1980’s. As much as we all loved the mindless violence, cheesy one-liners and the endless amounts of ammunition without re-loading, those glory days could not last forever. Leave it to Stallone to bring it back 2008 style.
There was blood, there was gore, there was even a pretty good story based on the longest running civil war in world history. And despite Rambo’s attempts he gets pulled into it to retrieve a few delusional Americans who thought can save the world by passing out a few bibles and hugs. How often does this work? Yea...it didn’t work this time either.
Rambo plays the usual silent strong type but is joined up with a few Mercenaries to extract the Americans. I enjoyed the fact that Rambo was not off on his own this time like in previous films. As we all know he’s getting up there in age and despite his ability to still pull off the “lone-warrior” thing It makes is slightly more believable if he’s got a few people on his side to help him out. Don’t get me wrong he is still a one man wrecking machine. He just gets a little bit of help in the ass-kickery-department.
The film is defiantly brutal. You see everything from limbs being blown off to a child being thrown into a fire. Is it too much? Maybe, but it’s actually happening in Burma. So…it is accurate. Rambo takes the cue as well and for the first three quarters of the film he rarely uses a gun. Yes that’s right, Rambo is without weapon. He opts for killing guys with his bare hands, his trusty bow or his hand made machete.
Look it’s RAMBO. It’s a man movie. So go out with the guys, eat some steak, talk about chicks then go see Rambo.
