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THURSDAY, OCT. 28, 1982LEADER -TELEGRAMSly strains credibility in First Blood'By Jeff CusterLeader-Telegram staffWith each movie he makes, Sylvester Stallone gets tougher and tougher while the credibility of his roles get smaller and smaller.In “Rocky,” he fought against all odds and went the distance against the world heavyweight champion. In “Rocky II,” he fought against all odds and beat the world heavyweight champion. In “Rocky III,” he fought against all odds, lost, and then fought against even more odds and beat another, even bigger heavyweight champion.But in “First Blood,” he fights against a small-town police force, the Oregon state patrol and the National Guard, and we are supposed to believe the odds are in his favor.Now come on.The movie opens as Stallone's character, John Rambo, learns that the last of his war buddies has died of cancer, presumably from exposure to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, which the United States used in Vietnam. Depressed and alone, he hits the road until he finds himself on the edge of a small Oregon town. He is greeted by the town sheriff (Brian Dennehy), who immediat-ly excorts him out of town because “people around here don’t like drifters.”Rambo refuses to leave town and the sheriff arrests him. After Rambo refuses to cooperate, he is beaten and hosed down. That’s pretty rough treatment for a guy arrested for vagrancy.What happens next is fairly pre-dictible. After the sheriff’s deputies attempt to dry-shave him, Rambo goes through the obligatory “POW flashback” routine and beats the crap out of everyone in sight. He steals a dirt bike (which seems to have the power to fly) and heads for mountains, with the evil sheriff and his deputies in hot pursuit.Once in the mountains, Rambo outsmarts the sheriff and his men, resulting in the death of one deputy and the serious wounding of the rest. Next, the state patrol and National Guard are called in. Along with them comes a Green Beret colonel (Richard Crenna)'' • £; / .M; ■ ■; m • lt;-who reveals the truth about Rambo.The colonel trained and commanded Rambo in Vietnam. It seems that Rambo is the last of an elite group of Green Berets trained in jungle warfare. Rambo was the best of the lot. He learned to hunt and kill his adversaries while living like an animal.“He’s trained to eat things that would make a billy goat puke,” the colonel tells the the sheriff. “I didn’t come here to save him from you. I came to save you from him.”In a climactic scene, he breaks down and cries to his former colonel, telling him how rotten society has treated him since his return. It’s a speech that rings slightly hypocritical in this film.The other flaws are minor in comparison, but irritating nonetheless. Rambo is unlucky enough to walk into a small town nestled in the mountains where the sheriff and his men carry M-16’s. But that’s OK, because four of them, shooting at him when he’s 30 feet from the nearest cover, only manage to wing him.The movie goes on from there with the usual shooting, explosions and all that other neat stuff, and to be fair, it does have its share of good excitment and action. But there are a few blatant flaws that hold “First Blood” back.First and foremost, the movie does everything to perpetuate the myth that Vietnam veterans (Green Berets in particular) are nothing more than over-pro-gramed psychopathic killing machines, ready to explode at any time. Stallone’s character is depicted throughout the movie as little more than an animal that can’t function in human society. All he knows how to do well, it seems, is kill.Those going to “First Blood” to see if Stallone can portray another character besides Rocky will probably leave this movie undecided. It’s hard to judge a character that mostly grunts, sweats, bleeds, and blows the hell out of everything in sight.And those who are going to this film to see Rocky will be greatly disapointed as well. In the “Rocky” films, Stallone’s character was one the audience could really pull for, respect and admire. In “First Blood,” you can only pity him.(“First Blood,” rated R, is playing at the Hollywood Theater in Eau Claire.)
Newspaper Details
Eau Claire Leader Telegram
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US
Thu, Oct 28, 1982
Page 19
Full Page
Clipped by
Jon C.
NJ, USA 14 Jan 2020
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