review by Owen Hughes Patron
First Blood 1982
Watched May 15, 2012
Owen Hughes’s review:
I kind of thought it would be a mindless action film where Sly goes around killing the bad guys in the jungle with his machine gun and that's about it. Like Predator, I guess, just without the Predator.
I was wrong. It's excellent. I found it very entertaining, and also quite sad. Sure, Rambo is this bad-ass, super elite soldier who can kill a man practically by looking at him with his wonky face, but I never realised there was a subtext quite so deep to it. The way the bent cops are almost enjoying hunting him down and killing him on "his own turf" if you like is obviously a subtle (maybe not so subtle, actually) allusion to how the American soldiers hunted down the Vietcong on their land and are always portrayed as laughing and firing on them when in reality it was horrible.
It's a good film. Not even just "for an action film", but it's something I feel stupid for missing out on for so long.
The movie is awesome. There's a great undertone to all the action. The over the top action is the next one, which is also fun.
Now you just need to read the novel and you'll get a different take on it. Same plot but some key differences. Well worth a read.
@Filmslayer - good to know! I do have the second film on dvd to watch at some point too.
@Chris - Cheers, I'll look into it.
I always love it when a movie you expect to be one way actually catches you off guard. I, too, thought this would be dumb.
But it's smart and thoughtful. And has great action to boot.
It definitely caught me off guard - I only realised why I thought it would be a mindless action film the other day when I watched First Blood II (which is pretty much a mindless action film - a good one, but still rather generic).
Apparently, I'd seen it before but completely forgot that I had, so it must've been in the back of my mind when I saw down to watch First Blood.