Rambo
Rambo like last years Balboa is another rest-on-your-laurels make work project for Sylvester Stallone who not only stars in but wrote and directed the picture. We first met the brooding John Rambo in the 1982 filmed in BC First Blood and 26 years later he’s still not over the post traumatic stress of Viet Nam. He’s now a recluse in Thailand wrangling cobras for snake charmers who entertain the tourists. He’s fairly close to the border with Burma the brutalized country where children are forced to fight or risk reprisals against their families and where genocide masked civil war has raged unabated for years. When American missionaries with medical supplies arrive asking Rambo to take them up river into the war zone he refuses until the only female among them successfully pleads their case. Kudos to Stallone for drawing attention to yet another deplorably forgotten pocket of misery in the world and up until the end of the missionary’s perilous journey the story has an engaging edge. However word gets back that the God squad has been taken captive and their pastor again enlists Rambo to escort a rescue team or mercenaries back into Burma things start to get surreal. Action fans won’t be disappointed but the violence gets cartoon-y in the predictable showdown of 6 guys against 100 soldiers, most of who were probably pressed into service.