Rambo II: La mission

I'm really surprised at how little respect people have for this movie. I could be wrong, but it seems to be the ideal movie for any Vietnam vet looking for an outlet to his frustration. The government used Rambo the way many soldiers must have felt used. If this movie is nothing more than a tiny way of saying "we're sorry you had to go through that," then the movie deserves all the respect we can muster.

Although done in the way of a mindless action film, this movie is steeped more in reality than you might think. It's true that there are hundreds of leftover POW's still alive in Vietnam. Many of them however have been moved over to Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. In the early eighties, Ronald Reagan tried to establish two rescue missions but stopped them at the last minute because their rescue would bring up a secret war the U.S. fought in Laos in the late sixties and early seventies. Many U.S. MIA's/POW's are from this secret war that no one was supposed to know about. Anyway, rather than try rescuing them, they felt that by "liquidating the merchandise" i.e. killing the POW's, the U.S. government could avoid embarrassment and let the pain of Vietnam die off. In fact, Vietnam did offer a number of live POW's to Reagan his first week of office for $ 4 billion dollars but they rejected this offer and continue to claim there are no more live POW's there, even though they have been tracking them by satellite for decades. What makes Rambo so disturbing is, this movie made $ 150 million at the box office, and Reagan even referenced it in a speech he gave once, yet no one in the media reports on the topic anymore. They instead look at it like they do the movie, simply a fantasy.

Viewed as an action film, Rambo First Blood Part II is hard to beat. It just never lets up, and it has Stallone at the top of his game. Its comic strip stuff, and is much less credible than First Blood. I don't care about that though, you want a serious film then watch The Deer Hunter or Platoon, but if you want to see a superbly made action film watch this. After the events of First Blood, John Rambo is in prison but gets released to be sent back to Vietnam to take pictures of a pow camp to get proof that there is still American pow's there. But he is double-crossed by his superiors when he tries to take some pow's out with him, he wasn't meant to do that, he was ordered to only take photos, so he's left behind to be captured , imprisoned and tortured by those oh so nasty RUSSIANS! Sly really had it in for the reds in 1985 after this film, he sent Rocky out to Russia to beat up that other nasty Russian Ivan Drago! It must have been what the people wanted as this and Rocky IV were two of the biggest smashes of the year. Steven Berkhoff plays the Russian bad guy in practically a carbon copy of his role in the James Bond film Octopussy, he does it well though, he was one of Hollywoods favourite bad guys of the mid 80's, you might remember him in Beverly Hills Cop, which was a film initially intended for........Sylvester Stallone! This movie has just been giving the DVD special edition treatment, buy it, and get yourself one of the greatest action flms ever made.

When I was a kid and I watched the first Rambo and this one, I thought the order was wrong. Here Rambo goes to war in the first one he came back from one. Well I was clueless what can I say. It's also not like I saw any social commentary or understood what PTSD is. I know I probably was too young to have watched them, but that I also did not know at the time.

Having rewatched the first three again recently, I remembered them and my memory got freshened up on a lot of things too. The action is pretty stellar in this one and we get some recognizable characters back and some new ones added. Now the main twist is very predictable, but the movie still works despite that. I remember the horror I felt when the slugs scene came up. But I learned about the salt "trick" too - not that I got a chance to use it (thankfully).

I actually had the pleasure to see this film in the theater on opening night. Granted I was only 6 years old at the time, but it's an experience I'll never forget.

Something happened. It might have been the thunderous roar that came over the audience after the opening sequence. Maybe it was the cheering, the yelling, people going insane. Shook the whole damn place. Now I can't explain to you what actually happened, I wasn't born a poet, but it was just incredible. Something that I have yet to see happen again with any other movie. Something only a Rocky or Rambo picture could ever do. It made me a believer.

One of my favorite scenes is when Stallone is slapped by one of the Vietnamese pirate's. "He sold us out…The bastard." Slap… No reaction, just a look that could cut through steel. And that's what Rambo is all about. He is every man. Or what every man wants to be. Not simply a hero, but a winner.

"Like you said Colonel, he went home." This picture basically invented the action hero. Why do you think the 80's were filled with the blood and guts routine. Countless spin offs would try to recapture the glory. All but a few would fail. I've even seen movies with direct quote rip-offs that actually steal several direct lines from this movie.

Is it Casablanca? No. Is it Apocalypse Now? No. Is it supposed to be? No. Stallone already made his miracle picture in 1976. It's called Rocky and it's one for the ages. Rambo: Does only one thing. Simply put, kick ass.