'First Blood' is first rate (except for some old fashioned absurdity)

First Blood

First Blood is actually pretty great -- with a few caveats.

Watching it now for the second time (and not counting the times I've caught parts of the edited version on television) I was struck by its breakneck pace (Die Hard owes some of its DNA to this film) and Sylvester Stallone's quiet, but intense performance.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Rambo story, he plays a Vietnam vet who is wandering through Oregon trying to reconnect with an old war buddy. He quickly (and I mean before the credits are even through) learns his friend is dead and before he can get a bite to eat he starts getting harassed by local cops.

This is my problem with the film. John Rambo seems completely harmless and yet he is immediately labeled a troublemaker (despite appearing clean and polite they keep saying he looks and smells awful). The cops in this town are so insanely corrupt and belligerent they defy reason.

Brian Dennehy in First Blood

I'm not an idiot, I get that the filmmakers want to establish Brian Dennehy and his cohorts as villains so we as an audience don't feel any guilt about Stallone killing them in cold blood one by one, but a little character development and plotting wouldn't have hurt anyone.

Still, this is a very exciting and entertaining movie. This is Stallone at the peak of his powers. Unlike Schwarzenegger (who I adore, don't get me wrong) he is not a winky hero with pithy one-liners. He is just a silent, deadly machine. He develops his character entirely through his actions.

In this film, as least, he is almost existential and the Rambo character is a haunted, twisted soul.

I love the tone of this film. It's actually quite disturbing if you think about it too hard but once the Richard Crenna Col. Trautman character shows up to tell everyone how badass and unstoppable Rambo is you get swept up in the camp fun of the whole thing. We are invited to get off on Rambo's savagery and we totally do, even if we feel a little embarrassed about it afterwards.

The whole message about how the American soldiers returning from Vietnam were disrespected feels like hooey ("somebody wouldn't let us win"-- yeah, right) but Stallone does do some of his best acting in this film and his emotional breakdown at the finale is compelling.

This movie makes me nostalgic for a kind of action movie they just don't make anymore. I like movies where the hero is always just barely one step ahead of his antagonists. The music is booming and the action is just as bold and hardcore.

Still, I hope they never remake this. It would be too slick and I think this story's power would be diminished by modern pyrotechnics. This is the perfect film for 1982 and it should stay there.