First Blood (1982)

In 1982, a drifter walks into a small Washington town looking for lunch and leaves it looking like a war zone. That's the setup for First Blood, Nic's pick this week, and the movie that gave the world John Rambo before the sequels turned him into a bow-and-arrow-wielding action figure. Nic came to the franchise backwards, through the bigger, splashier Part II, and only got around to the original years later. Steve, somehow, had never seen any of the Rambo movies front to back, just absorbed them by cultural osmosis, so this was a real first watch for him.

What they found is a much quieter, sadder movie than either of them expected. Rambo shows up in town just trying to find an old war buddy, gets run out by a small-town sheriff who takes real issue with the flag patch on his jacket, and things spiral from there into arrests, flashbacks, and a jailhouse meltdown that turns into a one-man guerrilla campaign in the woods. Steve and Nic both get a kick out of Stallone's specific brand of unintentional comedy, the overexplaining, the simpleton sincerity, and they spend real time on the film's inventory of found objects: a tarp poncho, a stolen jacket turned scarecrow decoy, and eventually a truck with a machine gun in the back, which both dads agree is the turning point where the movie really takes off.

Richard Crenna's Colonel Trautman gets singled out as the MVP, especially his opening monologue about what Rambo was trained to survive, and the dads dig into how much of the back half is really a two-hander between Trautman and Sheriff Teasle arguing about whether to let this man go or bring in two hundred body bags. They also trade theories on real-life Rambo inspirations, argue about how many rats is too many rats for one movie, and land in different places by the end: Nic still fully charmed by the character, Steve a little more skeptical once Rambo starts terrorizing a town that mostly just wanted him to leave.

Grab a torch, mind the rats, and enjoy the ride.