FIRST BLOOD (1982)
Reviewed By Jerry Saravia
(Originally viewed in 1982, revised review from 2003)
The notion that Vietnam vets were not welcomed in their own homeland because of what they did and what they represent may seem like an antiquated issue nowadays but it doesn't make it less resonant. As of now in glorious 2003, anti-war protesters still exist and decry the use of violence for any kind of interest, even in the interest of the war on terrorism. In 1982, a long-haired Vietnam Vet wearing a green jacket with the American flag symbol and entering a harmless town still seemed odd. Where was the harm and why would the small-town police chief see someone like that as a threat? To whom? Reminds me of Jack Nicholson's comment in "Easy Rider" that long-haired hippies would have their hair cut with rusty razor blades. That was in 1967, and this movie's setting is the early eighties.
Moving along, "First Blood" is the first film to feature the human-killing machine known as John J. Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), a man tortured by his memories of having fought that infamous war. He comes in to a small town (known as Hope) where he is less than welcomed. His intention was to visit a war buddy whom he learns died of cancer from that Agent Orange stuff. As soon as the police chief (Brian Dennehy) sees this Green Beret, he immediately asks him to leave town and go to the nearest diner, which is thirty miles away (oh, and he tells him to take a bath). Rambo is stubborn and decides to walk back into town. Before you know it, the Vietnam vet is taken to a police station and physically abused with clubs and water hoses. Rambo breaks free and escapes into the mountains, builds booby traps and plays a game of cat-and-mouse with the police, the National Guard and a bunch of Dobermans. All hell breaks loose, as if Rambo is fighting the Vietnam War all over again.
The opening scenes of "First Blood" are genuinely exciting and suspenseful, featuring the kind of physical violence that often places you on the edge of your seat. There is a moment, highly implausible, where Rambo jumps from the top of a cliff to a tree and merely makes it through with a bad cut on his arm (which he later stitches up). He is now a fugitive who is wanted for killing a police officer (though it was purely accidental), and survives mostly by using a serrated knife with a compass. Later, Rambo's own Green Beret commander, Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna), asks to bring in Rambo alone and bring him to justice on his own terms. That the chief would not comply to such demands is hardly a surprise - he wants Rambo dead.
Seeing the film again for the first time in almost twenty years, I was amazed to see how much physical abuse Rambo has to take in those startling opening sequences. I was also amazed that Rambo doesn't actually kill anyone (well, except for that one police officer he hurls through an office window). He is hardly the killing machine that he became in the atrocious "First Blood Part II" or "Rambo III" - he is more like a wounded animal in need of some counseling. The film does get bogged down with the Trautman character and a later speech by Rambo about what he has suffered since returning from the war - all of this is merely didactic without being insightful. The best scenes involve Rambo's survival methods and his ability to fool the authorities into thinking he's dead. It is these sections of the film, not to mention the opening sequence, that makes "First Blood" half of a terrific movie.
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