Rambo III




No. God would have mercy. He won't.

A slightly disappointing trivia bit. The Afghans that Rambo assists are not actually the precursors to the Taliban.

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has found himself a quiet little corner of the world at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. But of course the military comes knocking again, hoping for his assistance. This time Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) wants Rambo to go with him into Afghanistan to assist the rebels fighting against the occupying Soviet forces. Rambo refuses, but changes his mind when Trautman gets captured.

Perhaps it was just the low expectations going into it, but the third Rambo installment doesn't seem nearly as bad as some nay sayers might indicate. In fact, up to a certain point it's actually a solid action flick, but that may just be a little too much of Jerry Goldsmith's score talking (which is pretty awesome, incidentally). The narrative is sparse, but it leads up to some decent direction, at least for a while. Rambo movies in general lose most of their credibility once the shirt comes off. But even then the action here is fairly watchable; it's when the movie decides to make it into a buddy duo with the Colonel that things gets hackneyed. Sure the first "funny" line they do is good, but the next twenty, not so much. Things deteriorate from there, but for the most part Rambo III is much a cleaner film than its predecessor.

Rambo is of course old sticks to Stallone by this point, but he still manages to wring some empathy, or maybe even relatability out of him. It's probably in those scenes where he at least pretends to be human. Crenna is pretty ho drum, as are the rest, though Sasson Gabai is decent as Rambo's doubting guide. Obviously he didn't see Rambo 2.

Borderline epic at some points (again, Goldsmith), but of course, at the end of the day it's still just another Rambo movie.



-The Gnome