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Rambo III
USA 1988
produced by
Buzz Feitshans, Mario Kassar (executive), Andrew G. Vajna (executive) for Carolco
directed by Peter MacDonald
starring Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Marc de Jonge, Kurtwood Smith, Spyros Fokas, Sasson Gabai, Doudi Shoua, Randy Raney, Marcus Gilbert, Alon Aboutboul, Mahmoud Assadollahi, Joseph Shiloach, Harold Diamond, Mati Seri, Hany Said El Deen, Shaby Ben-Aroya, Marciano Shoshi, Sadiq Tawfik, Julian Patrice, Tal Kastoriano, Benny Bruchim, Tikva Aziz, Milo Rafi
screenplay by Sylvester Stallone, Sheldon Lettich, based on characters created by David Morrell, music by Jerry Goldsmith
Rambo
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) tracks down John Rambo (Sylvester
Stallone) in Thailand where he lives with monks and does the occasional
stick fight for money for their monastery. But Trautman wants Rambo back
on the battlefield, this time Afghanistan, where Rambo is to help Trautman
deliver weapons to the Afghan rebels fighting their Soviet oppressors.
Rambo refuses, Trautman goes without him ... and is promptly apprehended
by brutal Soviet Colonel Zaysen (Marc de Jonge), who tries to torture
information out of Trautman, with little success. When Rambo learns about
this from Trautman's colleague in Thailand Colonel Griggs (Kurtwood
Smith), he goes to Afghanistan after all, accompanied by Mousa Ghanin
(Sasson Gabai), a weapons supplier for the Mujahideen, who takes him to an
Afghan village near the fort where Trautman's kept. Rambo makes friends
with the locals before they're brutally attacked by Soviet helicopters. Of
course Rambo shoots down one of them, but that's too little too late for
many of the villagers - which only strengthens Rambo's resolve to free
Trautman. So he, accompanied by Mousa Ghanin and a young but hardened boy,
Hamid (Doudi Shoua), he sneaks into the fort and wreaks havoc, but when
both he and Hamid are injured, our heroes make a hasty retreat. Rambo
sends Mousa Ghanin and Hamid across the border, burns out his own wound,
then scales a cliff on the fort's perimeter to re-enter the place ... and
this time he frees Trautman and other prisoners and gets away stealing a
helicopter - and when that crashes, Rambo and Trautman try to make it to
the border on foot - but the obstacles they have to overcome just keep
mounting until it seems half the Russian army block their way - when the
Mujahideen arrive on horseback, and together with Rambo and Trautman they
manage to take out the enemy. Now ok, in hindsight an American
supersoldier teaming up with the Mujahideen seems kind of weird, but back
in the day, standing up against the Soviets at the side of whoever was a
patriotic thing to do. And its core, Rambo III was just that, a
film propagating a reactionary form of patriotism with some dangerously
militaristic undercurrents. So it's pretty much in the same vein as Rambo:
First Blood Part II, with the main difference that in the earlier
film Rambo was finally winning the Vietnam War, while this time it's
sticking it to the Soviets. So same old same old? Surprisingly no,
because in comparison to Rambo: First
Blood Part II, Rambo III is the far better film: Not that
the message got any better, but at least the execution - this time around,
Rambo's personal motives are much clearer, there is a focus put on
characters besides the central warmachine, Rambo is shown more vulnerable,
having to rely more on his resourcefulness than his machine gun, and some
of the dialogue is actually exhilerating. Plus the direction makes really
good use of its locations, adding spots of colour to the grim proceedings.
All this doesn't make Rambo III a good film by any stretch of the
word, but if you like explosions and want to check your brains at the door
for roughly 100 minutes, you'll at least experience a fun ride.
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eThaiCD.com
find Rambo III at adultvideouniverse.com
