When Rambo hit in 1982, the Vietnam War was still fresh in the memory of many Americans. When the eponymous novel was released in 1972, the deeply divisive conflict that was that war hadn't even ended yet. It’s easy to forget the complications and tensions behind the first meeting in the movie of decorated war veteran John Rambo and small town Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy). The Sheriff notices Rambo heading into town with a bag over his shoulder and his olive-drab fatigues hanging open, and offers him a ride through to the other side of the city.
"You know, wearing that flag on that jacket, looking the way you do, you're asking for trouble around here, friend," Teasle tells Rambo. He doesn’t stop there though, and does his best to make the former soldier feel as unwelcome as possible. "We don't want guys like you in this town, drifters. Next thing we know, we got a whole *bunch* of guys like you in this town. THAT'S WHY! Besides, you wouldn't like it here anyway. It's just a quiet little town. In fact, you might say it's BORING. But that's the way we like it. I get paid to keep it that way."
After kicking Rambo out of his car, the Sheriff leaves him with the recommendation to get a haircut and a bath - things one might do in a town like this one.Right from the beginning, First Blood grapples with America's embattled relationship with the individuals who make up our armed forces. When they're overseas, we have to support them with magnets and bumper stickers, and flags, but once they get home, they can become an inconvenience - something we want to celebrate with a holiday or two, then forget about the rest of the year. That hasn't changed much in three decades, and Sheriff Teasle’s not-so-subtly suggesting that Rambo ought to just evaporate feels straight-up modern, ripped-from-the-headlines style.
In First Blood, we see a soldier after the war, not during, and we hear about those he fought alongside. Most of them are dead, and the one left - Rambo himself - can't hold down a job or form a lasting relationship with anyone. This places Rambo in non-stop fight-or-flight mode. When he's pushed, he pushes back as a matter of instinct. But he doesn't want to fight - he wants to feel at home in his own country, as a civilian. And so John Rambo tries to work within the system around him. When Teasle takes him in, Rambo is mostly compliant.
Despite being in peak physical shape and sporting a latticework of scars, Rambo isn't a bada$$ in this movie in the M-40 blasting style that we typically think of regarding the character. And he definitely is not when he's in the basement of the Hope police station. In fact, he looks downright small and vulnerable. The ex-soldier is stripped naked before being beaten with a nightstick and washed with a literal firehose as many of the station police laugh at him. Rambo isn't powerful, cool, or sexy here - he's a broken man, almost more of an animal as he lashes out and escapes from the station.It's here that excessive force, police brutality, and over-militarization of the police come into play, along with toxic masculinity. After Rambo escapes and it's clear he's a force to be reckoned with, Teasle quickly becomes obsessed with catching him on his own. A call to the state could've de-escalated the situation, but the sheriff, offended that someone would dare defy him, makes it his personal quest to prove that he's not one to be messed with. The conflict escalates, however, people die, and Rambo goes into full-on survival mode. The enemy drew - yes, you guessed it - First Blood, and Rambo has gone from flight to fight.
And yeah, there's no question that Rambo is a bada$$. He's a one-man army who knows every survival and guerrilla warfare tactic out there, and he puts every one of them to good use. But he's not fighting a righteous war, and it never feels like it. This isn't like John Wick where it's the art of the gunfight on display, or Taken, where Liam Neeson is on the ultimate quest to protect his family. Rambo looks frightened in many of these scenes, like someone scrambling for a few more minutes of life.
Eventually, outside forces are called in, long after "too late" would qualify as an accurate timeframe. The weekend reserve guard corners Rambo at the entrance to a mineshaft, and here both the themes of overpowered response and misdirected masculinity are once again on display.
Throughout the latter part of the film, Rambo's former commander, Colonel Trautman, has been warning Teasle and company about the danger they're up against. With his warnings proven true, Trautman finally finds Rambo has made it back to the police station. What ensues isn't a battle, but a breakdown. Finally finding an anchor point to reattach to, Rambo lets down his guard. The scene is a little expositional, but it feels honest as Rambo sobs as he talks about the jarring shift of returning from war:
"Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win! But somebody wouldn't let us win! And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting. Calling me baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me, huh? Who are they? Unless they've been me and been there and know what the hell they're yelling about!"
He continues, saying that "back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million-dollar equipment, back here I can't even hold a job parking cars!"
There's no heroism here. Rambo doesn't look victorious or strong despite his training having proven wildly effective and having come out of the situation alive. He looks beaten and tired. He cries, and his commanding officer, the closest thing he has to a father figure, holds him while he does. The movie ends with two men hugging, and the credits freeze on a beaten-down Rambo being walked out by Trautman in a blanket, presumably to prison. It's a devastating scene that drives home how war can change a person and still leave parts of their humanity intact.
If Rambo was made for the first time today, I don't think we'd get this movie. We wouldn't get a movie about a frightened man, trained to the point of brainwashing, fighting to survive, only to break down.
What followed First Blood was exactly the nightmare the Rambo of the first film would've hated. John Rambo ends up in increasingly implausible situations, and the third movie has him fighting cartoonish Russians in what feels like a Cold War propaganda flick. It's not about the horrors of war and the mark they leave on those that fight, but about American exceptionalism coming in to show everyone how real war-fighting is done.
With First Blood though, we're able to look back at the effects of that war in a personal way that we see so rarely these days. Action movies got goofier, and war movies often more jingoistic. First Blood, however, is not the Rambo movie we initially think of when the character is mentioned. No, it’s much better than that.
