A TRIBUTE TO RAMBO

Rambo is the brainchild of author David Morrell who first introduced us to the character in his 1972 novel First Blood, which, of course, was the very first movie in the series that came out a decade later with Sylvester "Rocky" Stallone playing the title role. For those few of you who haven't heard of Rambo before or seen any of the movies or read the book, Rambo is a Vietnam Vet who gets into trouble when he hitchhikes to a small town in Kentucky and runs afoul of the town sheriff who at first kindly runs him out of town, saying how he doesn't want "his kind" in his precious little town. Rambo in turn declares all-out war on the sheriff and his precious little town. In the book, Rambo is a murderous psycho who ends up killing about half the town, including the sheriff (well, technically, he dies of a heart attack undoubtedly brought on by the stress of hunting down Rambo). In the movie, Rambo--who's given the first name John that's not in the book as he's simply referred to as Rambo--only kills a small handful of people and only then reluctantly so to make him more "likable" to moviegoers. In the book, Rambo's commanding officer and mentor Sam Trautman, who helps the sheriff track down Rambo, ends up killing his former protegee by blowing his head off with a shotgun. In the movie, Rambo lives--along with the sheriff (who's a far more sympathetic character in the book than in the movie)--so that there could be sequels if the movie was successful enough (although, in the DVD extras, there is a scene in which Trautman--played by the late Richard Crenna--kills Rambo upon his request). First Blood spawned three more sequels, some, of course, more successful than the others. Rambo has been both celebrated and criticized. The "right" has celebrated him for his pro-American jingoism--although this is an anti-American theme that runs through all the films and the book (in part because Rambo feels betrayed by the very country he fought for)--and the "left" has vilified him for the same reason along with the fact that the films are ultra-violent (especially the last one released a few years ago where Rambo, while living in Burma, rescues a group of missionaries captured by a band of rebels whom Rambo, along with a group of mercenaries, brutally slaughters them all). While the so-called left's vilification of the character is not so surprising, the so-called right's celebration of the character--Ronald Reagan was known to cite Rambo in some of his speeches--is rather odd considering that, at least by today's standards, Rambo would actually be considered a terrorist. As for myself, I'm actually a fan of the movies and the book. Unlike some politically-minded people, I take the Rambo flicks (and the book) for what it is: FICTION. A sidenote: My favorite of all the Rambo films would probably be the third one in which Rambo rescues his former commanding officer Sam Trautman who gets captured while on a "secret" mission in Afghanistan during the eighties when the U.S. was "secretly" supplying the very same Afghan rebels who would in turn be blamed for the horrific tragedy of 9/11 (and that's all I'm going to say about THAT). At the end of the film, right before the end credits start to roll, the movie is "dedicated" to the "gallant people" of Afghanistan. When I saw the movie on late-night TV some years ago, that part of the film was noticeably, shall we say, edited. My, how quickly times change!