First Blood (1982)

"We ain't hunting him- he's hunting us!"

Appallingly, I'd never seen this '80s action classic until now. First impressions are that, yes, it's a superb action movie, crammed with sizzling set pieces, yet I came expecting a B movie, and what I got was unexpectedly full of pathos. It's 1982; the Vietnam War ended nine years ago for America. But it seems the returning soldiers were shockingly neglected, materially and emotionally, by their country. And, while this is often seen as a right-wing taking point, Rambo's sobbing breakdown before Colonel Trautman seems to be a rebuke at America's individualistic lack of social democratic institutions.

Anyway, this is an awesome film, and cleverer than it  looks. The initial scene establishes that his only purpose is to find his old friends from the war,  it now the last of them is dead, and he’s alone, alienated, in an America with no place for him. And when Will, a two bit sheriff of a shitty little town in Washington state (those accents are a bit southern, though- is this really accurate?) starts to persecute him for no reason it escalated into a war with a trained and flawless killing machine, leaving things to escalate and escalate with each set piece topping the last and every single minute being utterly gripping. And yet Stallone, playing the macho and taciturn Rambo, never loses sight of the character’s pathos.

The whole thing is brilliantly made, from the brief but shocking Vietnam flashbacks during the early police brutality scenes to the Dukes of Hazzard car chases, and the ever-escalating stakes are completely believable. A much better film, and one with much more of a heart, than I was expecting.