40 Years Ago Today: First Blood (1982)

In general, I am not the world’s biggest fan of the Rambo films.  

Parts II – III (I haven’t seen any after that…) serve largely as awkward polemics in which a fighting man who is not really a “thinker” is put in the position of making political statements, and quite awkwardly so.  

The grandiose, high-flying words just don’t feel right or ring true coming out of John Rambo’s mouth. He’s not a politician. And he’s not a deep thinker, either.

I’m certain others will disagree with me, but the blockbuster 1985 film Rambo: First Blood Part II feels more like a laundry list of flag-waving philosophical talking points than a fully-articulated movie.

However, I am an affirmed admirer of First Blood (1982) the film that introduced the world to Sylvester Stallone’s character, a Vietnam veteran named John Rambo. 

I resolutely admire this film not only because of the splendidly orchestrated stunts and action scenes, but because Rambo’s righteous anger is not directed at any one particular group or party, but at everyone in a system that has egregiously failed him. 

In this way, First Blood is neither a right wing diatribe nor a left wing polemic. 

Instead, it is an aching, emotional primal scream that transcends politics and partisanship.  

The brilliantly-staged film asks -- in a rage-driven bellow -- how the world could turn out this badly for someone who was only doing what he felt was his patriotic duty, and what he was called to do.

To put it crudely then, First Blood is simultaneously anti-war and anti-anti-war. 

The film vehemently derides the system that landed men into armed conflict without the resources they needed to cope with the violence they witnessed, and then abandoned them upon their return stateside. 

At the same time, First Blood decries the protest movement, which in some cases blamed soldiers for the decisions of their superiors, and the decisions of politicians in Washington D.C. 

There’s more than enough anger to go around, in other words. And make no mistake: First Blood is an angry, emotional, reactionary film.  

Indeed, that incredible passion is the engine that fuels this work of art and provides it tremendous energy.

By contrast, later Rambo films attempt to suggest that might is right, and that if only Rambo were “allowed” to fight unfettered, we would have won the war in Vietnam.  

“Do we get to win this time?”  Those films asked, and that’s a deflection.  It’s the wrong question, and the wrong point to focus on.

Whether or not one supported the Vietnam War, this focus represents a deeply unsubtle simplification or reading of history. 

Or described another way, First Blood is a veritable primal scream suggesting that the Vietnam War was a nation’s folly, and that elements of the anti-war movement are responsible for making it worse for those men who (bravely) fought in it than it already was.  

The later Rambo movies say, basically, if we could just re-fight the war, we’d sure win it this time. 

There’s a lot of space between those two different philosophies. I find the first admirable, and the second delusional.  

First Blood still impresses as a work of art today as well because it recreates -- in small-town America, no less -- the deep contradictions, divides, and paradoxes that bedeviled the country in the 1960s and early 1970s.

First Blood isn’t a gung-ho, macho, flag-waving cartoon, either.  That’s merely the caricature that Rambo became later.  To some extent, critics have retroactively imposed that popular image on this initial film, and a re-watch reveals it just doesn’t fit.

On the contrary, First Blood is an angry, righteous -- and necessary -- exorcism of a national tragedy; one in which there is plenty of blame to share on all sides of the debate. 

“We aren’t hunting him. He’s hunting us.”

Some years after the end of the Vietnam War, former United States Army Special Forces soldier John Rambo (Stallone) goes to visit in his friend, Delmar, in the Pacific Northwest, only to learn that he has died due to his exposure to Agent Orange. Delmar’s death makes Rambo the last survivor of his unit.

Rambo continues his journey through the town of Hope, Washington, but is intercepted by the town sheriff, Teasle (Dennehy), who fears that he is a drifter, and a dangerous element. Teasle drives Rambo out of town and when Rambo tries to return to Hope, Teasle arrests him.  Teasle finds a knife on him, and charges Rambo both with vagrancy and carrying a concealed weapon.

While incarcerated, Rambo is treated brutally by Teasle and his deputies, including Galt (Jack Starrett), Mitch (David Caruso) and Ward (Chris Mulkey). 

This wretched treatment causes Rambo to experience flashbacks from his excruciating time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and to lose control of his impulses. His survival instinct kicks in, and Rambo injures several police officers, escapes the jail, and flees into the nearby forest.

Teasle and his deputies pursue Rambo into the wilderness, and before long, have a full-scale war on their hands as the Vietnam vet arranges for them to be fouled by booby traps and other dangers. 

Rambo incapacitates the entire group, and Galt is killed, though the circumstances are not precisely Rambo’s fault.  Rambo attempts to surrender to authorities, but is rebuffed by Teasle, and nearly shot in the head.  Later, Rambo captures Teasle and tells him to “let it go,” but Teasle will not back down.

Before long, Rambo’s former superior office, Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) arrives in Hope to help negotiate a peaceful solution to the war that rages.  

But Teasle has already called in the National Guard and State Police.  

Matters are escalating, and before long, there’s a very real chance that this war will have no winners at all…only casualties.

“We had orders. When in doubt…kill.”

Adapted from David Morrell’s 1972 novel of the same name, First Blood boasts a truly clever structure in the sense that Rambo’s mis-adventure in Hope -- an ironically-named town -- seems to mirror directly much of the Vietnam War experience and context. 

In particular, Rambo runs up against a man, Teasle, who refuses to back down or to negotiate with him. Teasle’s only strategic move is to escalate, to the point that his own town is torn apart by his refusal to see reason, or to think outside the rubric of “total victory” over Rambo.  

In some fashion then, Teasle -- at least as depicted in the film -- symbolizes American leadership (from both political parties) circa 1964 – 1974 or thereabouts.  He represents unyielding, boot-on-your-throat authoritarianism.  It’s his way or the highway. If he cannot win with the forces under his command, Teasle will simply call up more forces and throw them at the cause too.  His “tactic” is overwhelming numerical advantage…and that’s it.

The paranoid quality of First Blood’s narrative arrives early, specifically in Teasle’s wantonly hostile actions in the film’s first act. He manufactures a reason to hate and fear Rambo on sight, trumping up charges of carrying a concealed weapon (a hunting knife, for Heaven’s sake…) and vagrancy.  

In keeping with the metaphor of the Vietnam War, Teasle’s trumped-up charges against Rambo serve as the equivalent of The Gulf of Tonkin incident… a manufactured reason to go to war.  Suddenly, Teasle has the excuse he needs to treat Rambo badly. 

Oddly, Teasle’s actions make almost no sense on a practical level. They are only sensible if one considers the Vietnam War allegory.  Rambo’s hair isn’t especially long or ratty.  He doesn’t appear especially unkempt, either. And all he wants in Hope is a hot meal.  That’s all he “hopes” to find there. 

But Teasle is unreasonably and irrevocably hostile to Rambo…even telling him that his jacket with the American flag patch on it is bound to cause a problem.  If we understand Teasle as an avatar for imperialism and authoritarianism, he makes, at least, a modicum of sense as a dramatic character.  He becomes consumed by what “could” happen because of Rambo’s presence, not who Rambo actually is.  

And frankly, this sounds a lot like the (now-discredited…) Domino Theory. If Vietnam falls to communists, other states will also fall to communists too, the theory went.  There are a lot of “ifs” in that scenario that don’t involve -- at least directly – either reality or the present circumstances.  

Similarly, Teasle sees Rambo as a future threat not yet fully materialized, but it’s hard to see exactly why. Does Teasle think that this Vietnam Vet is going to start killing babies in Hope?  Is that his hidden (and paranoid…) fear?

Uniquely, Rambo takes on the characteristics of the Viet Cong in a sense.  He is “one” with the natural environment, using the forest to his advantage and acting as a guerrilla soldier when the first shots are fired. 

He also sets booby traps for the pursuing officials, and many of his decoys and traps outlast superior firepower (the rubric of American forces in Vietnam).  At one point, Rambo even takes sanctuary in a mine or tunnel system, imagery which clearly evokes Viet Cong tactics.  

In more blunt terminology, both the Viet Cong and Rambo are deemed enemies of American authority in their respective wars. They represent some “outside” or “alien” world-view.

This shuffling of traditional heroic and villainous roles in First Blood effectively recreates the visceral confusion of the Vietnam War Era.  Americans were in Vietnam to fight the Viet Cong, and yet when stories came back about the behavior of some American soldiers, the tide of public opinion in the States turned against the war.

For instance, the My-Lai Massacre -- the murder of several hundred unarmed civilians by American soldiers in March of 1968 -- scrambled traditional concepts of right and wrong, heroes and villains.  How could people feel patriotic knowing that innocent people -- families -- were being murdered in their name?

First Blood is very much reflective of this complex and difficult dynamic. Watching the film, we expect to be on the side of the law and order, on the side of police, national guardsmen, and state police, but find that these expected authority figures are alternately despotic and cruel, or (as in the case of the guardsmen) inept, heavily armed buffoons.  

By contrast we sympathize with Rambo, even though he is launching a full-scale assault against civil and military authorities. He destroys private property, threatens other soldiers, and creates chaos.

Once more, traditional lines of sympathy are scrambled, and it isn’t clear who we should be rooting for. 

Should it be for the police to put down an armed threat who lays siege to an innocent town?  

Or for the wronged man fighting the system with every ounce of strength in his body?  

Of course, as the film’s central figure, we ultimately do root for Rambo, but he is clearly an anti-hero in this film (as opposed to the sequels, where he is the fully heroic arm of a resurgent right-wing establishment…). 

In First Blood, Rambo is fighting the system -- the very system that we cherish -- but one that has been co-opted by those who refuse to compromise or see reason.

In my introduction to this review, I noted that First Blood is an “aching” primal scream, an exorcism, and a necessary one.  

This becomes especially apparent in the final scenes.  I believe that Sylvester Stallone’s greatest silver screen performance arrives in First Blood, in the last act, when Rambo lays out the details of his life post-Vietnam. 

He can’t get a job, let alone keep one. 

He is tortured by images of friends and comrades dying in war.  

He is hurt -- psychically-wounded -- by the fact that his countrymen view him as a murderer and a baby-killer when he went to war, essentially, at their government’s behest (and demand).   

Rambo did what was asked of him, even though it was destructive to him personally, and now he is hated for having answered the call. 

Thus Rambo faces the true no-win scenario.  He is derided because the war was lost, and hated by both the establishment and the anti-establishment.

During Rambo’s rage-driven monologue, Stallone is as raw and open emotionally as we have ever seen him…as if driven mad by the contradictions of Rambo’s situation as a man without a country, even though he gave everything for his country. 

It is rare for an action movie to resolve in a scene of intense dialogue like Rambo’s in the police station in First Blood, but that’s precisely what occurs here.  We get this huge catharsis -- not out of violence meted -- but out of emotional release.  Rambo finally speaks at length about who he is, and what he is become…and is heard.  To some extent, that seems to be all he wants…to be heard.  

Later films in the franchise, as I’ve noted, ask Rambo to pull a lot of partisan baggage re-litigating the Vietnam War.  But in First Blood, we simply get a portrayal of an angry man who has been abandoned at every turn, and must now reconsider what his country stands for, and what he stands for.

First Blood is all about Rambo’s consuming rage, and the fact that he has been taught by his country that the way to express such rage is through violence, war, and blood-shed.  Trautman describes the philosophy as “when in doubt…kill.”

Only in the film’s finale, when Rambo unloads his emotions on Trautman, however, is Rambo’s war truly ended.  Violence and war ultimately resolve nothing, and that’s why First Blood is an anti-war film.  War did not make Rambo great.  On the contrary, war trained him to survive in only one heightened environment -- the battlefield -- but left him without the resources he needs to live among us, as a countryman, as a human being.

Although Rambo is described as “resilient” in First Blood, the opposite is actually true. He mounts a “private war” because he “just can’t turn off” the rage within him.  Accordingly, the final, haunting freeze frame of First Blood is a portrait of a man who -- years after the war is ended -- is finally taking stock of who he is, and why he is that way.

First Blood features involving, dynamic action scenes. Rambo’s escape from jail is a kinetic dance, a battle of violence that showcases John as a living, breathing weapon.  The scene on the cliff-wall, perhaps the most dazzling in the picture, is tense, and bereft of any obvious fakery or stunt doubles.  The action here is splendidly orchestrated, but again, the film’s real gut-punch comes in the substitution of Rambo’s self-expression for a deadly shoot-out.  The film goes out not with a blaze of fire-works, but a blaze of emotions and truth-telling.

Popular reputation to the contrary, First Blood isn’t a rah-rah cartoon or a two-dimensional action film like its successors. It’s the emotionally-affecting primal scream of a soldier hated and abandoned on all sides, who is just trying to mind his own business.

Sadly, he finds that he is to be denied even that modest freedom, and fights back the only way he knows how.

The way we taught him to fight.