First Blood

The 1980s was a special period for movies, especially when it came to action flicks. Whereas nowadays, action flicks usually need to focus on good writing, story, and characters to sell tickets, it was the exact opposite for any film within the genre that would come out around this period. They would have little to no interest in how they told their movies or even if what they were doing was that distinct from various other examples, all that really matters was what was being blown up, why whatever it was is going to be blown up, and how it exactly would be blown up. It usually relied on the solitary hero fighting off against comically evil villains within an incredibly goofy yet gritty environment where personalities were extreme, fight scenes were bombastic, and emotions were for the weak and all that matter was how cool they could make violence, blood and hard-core masculine aggressive come sweating out of the cinema screens. While people ate it up and it resulted in a mindless fun time with movies that are still guilty-pleasure fun watchers to this day, there were occasional movies that sneaked their way into this period disguised as a dumb action movie while being a lot more under the surface, with examples like RoboCop, Demolition Man, Total Recall, and the one of discussion today, First Blood. Set during a pre-Vietnam War era, troubled and aimless veteran John Rambo (played by Sylvester Stallone) finds that he’s met with disdain after entering the town of Hope, Washington, and is immediately removed by the sheriff, Will Teasle (played by Brian Dennehy). After being detained and violently handled within the police precinct which triggers his traumatic experiences in the war, Rambo escapes custody and flees into the mountains. Being chased by an overly large crowd, even including his former commanding officer, colonel Sam Trautman (played by Richard Crenna) yet possessing all the combat skills required to face them, this cat and mouse game may not be going in the direction the police think that it’s going, especially when Rambo shows his real skills in full action. Based on the 1972 novel of the same name written by David Morrell, First Blood worked as more of a bashing of these typical action movies and uses its simplistic style and blatant graphic violence to paint a tragic picture of the negative aspects of this line of thinking. While it doesn’t handle these elements perfectly, it did try to stand out in a period where they didn’t normally try to in the same manner, and it deserves praise for making that attempt.

The main set-up for this movie dates back as far as 1939 when the novel based itself off another novel named Rogue Male, which was all about an unnamed English sportsman attempting to assassinate an unnamed European dictator. Both this and the original novel had attributes that would let them function fine as a generic action movie, yet there is this sense of awareness that there’s more to it than it’s letting on. The story for this movie is actually really good; the simple layout and quick pace works nicely together and it’s harsh, unwavering and ‘’bloody’’ mindset leads into its other purpose of bringing light to the people who went and served during the Vietnam War. It was a time where War wasn’t being glorified like it was during the First World War, and where most of the people that came back weren’t as praised as previous veterans. It nicely ties into this pre-expected formula that 80s action movies worked with and brought the audience something that was going to be the opposite. It doesn’t have the one-liners, the epic action, or the grandiose scale that allowed this nice sense of escapism, it is instead mostly quiet, intentionally unimpressive from a visual and even action standpoint, and pretty morose in its atmosphere and subject matter. The direction by Ted Kotcheff does a good job at making what looks like a low-budget independent film, still feel meaningful, the screenplay by Michael Kozoll, William Sackheim and even star, Sylvester Stallone, isn’t the most gripping material, but has a few moments where the dialogue has a bitter poignancy to it (particularly during the final monologue), and the bitter quality prevalent in this film brings a new coat of paint to the genre and its impressive for what it did and should be appreciated for that. With that said, it could have gone a lot further to make its message even more memorable. The handling of this message isn’t as clear as it could easily be and that prevents it from going all the way with it. In an environment where everybody should be within the grey area of morality, the movie paints pretty black and white extremes that are pretty unrealistic in a film that’s trying to be very realistic. Things go unexplained and unexplored for a majority of the movie until it becomes too late and while it’s obvious what the goal of the movie is to someone who’s aware, the movie doesn’t make it clear enough that’s its exact point until literally the final scene.

The characters feel like they should be portrayed as realistic, gritty and (even sometimes) emotionally broken, but neither side of this unfortunately black and white character spectrum is handled that effectively. The handling of John Rambo feels very confused; he’s not really given a distinct identity, rather he exists as a mold for a victim of war trauma and backlash. It works on that front and in terms of being the anti-version of a typical action star (barely says anything, moves are pretty ordinary, doesn’t really look that cool, etc), it’s a good starting point, but he’s also one that isn’t as consistent as he should be. Being originally portrayed as an anti-hero in the novel who did some things that would make it pretty hard to for people to like him but made the eventual reveal of his broken mental state all the more tragic, the movie removes a lot of the grey area that made the character interesting and makes him less dangerous and amoral, and therefore less engaging. The removal of any bad quality of him doesn’t mingle with the movie’s main moral, which makes it less effective and therefore, the character less effective. Stallone is still during the era of his career where while he was definitely known at this point he wasn’t a huge star yet, so his presentation is a lot more understated and not as bombastic as usual, and while the character isn’t written interestingly enough to allow Stallone the chance to let loose and show a new side to his acting abilities, the final scene is done pretty well, so he does get points for that. The antagonists have the exact opposite problem; while they should be portrayed as less villainous and more a consequence of circumstance rather than actual villainy, they are so cartoonishly evil and so hypocritically wrong on so many levels that it leaves both sides feeling like the typical action cliches they are supposed to be spoofing. Satire doesn’t work in this tone or environment as for something like this story to work, realistic subtly is what’s required to oppose the usually loud and over-the-top action characters. Everybody’s acting is mostly fine, but they feel forced into these pretty blanket roles that they aren’t really given much to work with (outside of the final scene where it feels like the movie becomes fully realized).

The look of the movie feels very unpolished, grimy, and even low budget. This can sometimes be to the film’s detriment as it strangely feels dubbed over in several moments, with odd line deliveries, clearly added in lines in post-production and considering how a much longer cut was created for the movie before being trimmed down, it would make sense that lines would feel out of place or even poorly delivered and added in. On the other side though, the environment feels a lot less impressive than in other action movies which does work in this movie’s favor. Everything about it feels incredibly suffocating; like its wearing down on the individual just by being around it either in a large encompassing forest or just an unsafe police station. It’s got a dreary sense to it through its lighting and cinematography by Andrew Laszlo and the ending does a nice job making all of this unpleasant imagery feel legitimate with the fiery backgrounds of the darkened city; what could look epic instead looks sickly. The action is also far less dramatic and less memorable than other movies of its type that came out around the same time. In a set-up that constantly hypes up the lead character as being this unstoppable monster, it does feel a little bizarre how he barely kills anyone in the whole movie. It’s like it’s going overboard to make the lead likeable just because of a familiar actor as opposed to what the story should really require.

For what it represented at the time and even now, First Blood does a decent job at standing out from its competition by arguably doing less than them. It has less action, it has less flare, it has less enjoyable elements, it has less memorable moments, but what it does try to focus on is different for the time and something that is worth talking about. Creating an almost pessimistically satirical action movie about the cons of this mindset and the real-life struggles of Vietnam war survivors is really interesting, but it could have been a lot more if it were made in a different time. With the previously mentioned examples of action films that took bigger steps to being more meaningful, they were allowed to be more creative and wowing because they were sci-fi films and weren’t bound to the realms of reality, whereas this film was and in spite of its best attempts, wasn’t able to explore as much as it should’ve. The characters are poorly handled, the story is a bit messy and aimless in moments, and it destroys any sense of moral ambiguity when its roles and situations feel very easy to separate. Not an awful movie and considering this franchise would ironically devolve into the very kind of action-heavy franchise that it was originally criticizing, it should be applauded much more for its level of restraint, but it’s definitely worth checking out more for what it represents rather than what it actually is. Depending on your mood, see the beginnings of the figure known as Rambo.