Rambo last blood poster - movie review blog - maldeegan.com/blog
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Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills to exact revenge in a final mission.”
The movie First Blood was one of the seminal action movies of the 80s. Directed by Ted Kochef it brought to life the character of John Rambo, a traumatized Vietnam vet shunned by society, spit upon and denounced. A seething ball of pent up aggression unchecked by a greedy army general whose killing machine has malfunctioned into a wandering hobo in search of a home and finding none.
The first outing a chilling indictment of Vietnam a war no-one wanted, scarring the lives of those who entered it leaving them shell shocked and weary misfits. Stallone's portrayal of Rambo a career highlight.
We zoom forward 40 years or so later to Rambo: last blood a pale, almost unrecognisable photocopy of a Rambo movie. An ultra violent cartoon with some genuinely shoddy acting and unconvincing direction.
Here John Rambo is living a hermits existence at his father's ranch. Hiding himself bizarrely in a set of underground tunnels constructed around his desert home living like a tunnel rat. In this outing Stallone is subdued, seething with barely contained anger, traumatised by visions of the dead kept at bay by a cocktail of prescription drugs and clean honest graft. His love for his pseudo daughter Gabriel played by Yvette monral is tested when she crosses the border into Mexico to find her estranged father.
While there she is Groomed and sold by her supposed friend Giselle to a ruthless gang of traffickers who kidnap Gabrielle, forcing her into a life of coerced prostitution.
Once Rambo learns of this he must embark on one final mission to find and retrieve his adoptive daughter. Things however, do not go to plan finding himself initially outgunned and beaten to bloody pulp to be strangely 'let go' by these gangsters, branding him instead like cattle. Chillingly they inform him his 'daughter' will also pay a similar price and leave him to rot in the barren streets of Mexico.
Gabriel meanwhile is being hooked on Heroin and forced into grisly sexual acts with nameless patrons in the dingiest brothal ever invented. John Rambo must unleash his inner warrior once again and rescue her.
In a bloody-minded rescue Rambo escapes with Gabriel to have her die of an overdose setting in motion revenge of the bloodiest kind.
Contrived and at times poorly executed Rambo: last blood is a mixed bag filled with weirdly stilted acting and ultra violent deaths.
Initially the concept of a ‘Rambo western’ was intriguing but this concept was jettisoned in deference to a clichéd gangster setup and contrived story beats. When all is said and done Rambo: last blood isn't a very good movie. It's a shameless cash in with strangely TV aesthetics; instead of a fitting end to a franchise we get a damp squib that fails to excite, going through the motions like the story itself ticking boxes until the blood-letting begins.
When the inevitable finale in the underground tunnels comes round there is some flashes of interest but it reeks of repetition. Once you've seen one gruesome death you've seen them all. Which is a shame because there was potential to make this sequence interesting and filled with tension.
Ultimately Rambo: last blood is forgettable. A less than adequate ending to a classic character who was given short shrift by a poorly written script and lifeless direction.
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