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From CHUD’s script review of John Rambo:

The Rambo films - if we’re to attach any sort of cultural significance to them at all - are the continuing story of how the Vietnam war reshaped and ruined many a man, and this makes them inherently critical of the government in general - and since all three films were produced and released during a particularly hardcore Republican regime - they can only be indicting the foreign policy of the day (policy that paid only lip service to the notion of soldiers incarcerated on foreign soil, or policy that left “the gallant people of Afghanistan” high-and-dry, stewing in their own juices until they came to realize that yes, America may indeed suck).

From the beginning of the first installment, these films call out our government for its inability to grant the slightest aid or respect to people who sacrificed their health, sanity, and lives for some of its most misguided notions.

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These films get their jingoistic/patriotic rep because of the manner in which at least one self-serving politician tried to align himself with the character. Ronald Reagan once said that he’d know how to handle foreign devils “now that he’d seen Rambo”, and he mentioned the character quite a bit in speeches in his day (guy never really did leave Hollywood). I always laugh when some out-of-touch politician tries to hip it up by name-dropping some pop-cultural tidbit he doesn’t understand. Reagan was great for that - like when he wanted Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA to be his campaign theme - have you heard the song, Bonzo? Have you? Really?

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No one will be able to swat at this film with the face-saving/revisionist history criticism Rambo II has engendered…or dismiss it as Red Scare posturing - this film is all about human rights. John Rambo is not about winning a war or fighting a government-generated boogeyman - it’s about surviving in the face of atrocity. The script’s structure is very similar to that of Rambo III, (Rambo finds himself reluctantly dragged into the battle) but without the elements that make that film so easy to write-off as propaganda. The tale is crude and conflicted, as Stallone the writer seems to have a deep respect for the bright-eyed activism of the missionaries…he just knows it doesn’t always work out - especially not in a part of the world where turning the other cheek gets you decapitated, and the meek inherit bullets.

And sure, as a war film, it’s not The Thin Red Line (John Rambo is a film that needs to blow shit up), but it does feel as though it was conceived as an homage to Samuel Fuller-style “tabloid” screenwriting - it’s brutal and arguably exploitative, but with a point to make about people. Of course, the film must stand as a nostalgia piece first and foremost - and if it can’t trade on your love of Stallone’s second most popular character (right behind Joe Bomowski), then it’s more than ready to trade on your fuzzy affection for the genre Rambo inspired. As the aforementioned trailer garishly demonstrates, the film is constructed to be a love letter to every over-the-top, mud-covered, jungle-creeping, throat-slitting, garrote-wired, squib-splattered, bamboo-splintered ‘80’s actioner ever made. If Stallone does his screenplay justice, John Rambo will stand as the best Joseph Zito movie Joseph Zito never made.

And really, who can’t love that?

Read the whole damn thing here. John Rambo sounds great. If you haven’t seen the internet trailer, check it out. Bad. Ass.