Whatever possessed God in heaven to make a man like Rambo?
God didn't make Rambo. I made him.
Who the hell are you? Sam Trautman.
Colonel Samuel Trautman. Look, we're a little busy this morning,
Colonel. What can I do for you? I've come to get my boy. Your boy?
I recruited him, I trained him, I commanded him in Vietnam for 3 years.
I'd say that makes him mine. I wonder why the Pentagon
would send a full-bird colonel down here to handle this.
The Army thought I might be able to help. Well, I don't know in what
way. Rambo's a civilian now. He's my problem.
I don't think you understand. I didn't come here to rescue Rambo
from you. I came here to rescue you from him.
Well, we all appreciate your concern, Colonel. I will try
to be extra careful. I'm just amazed that he allowed any of your posse
to live. Is that right?
Strictly speaking, he slipped up. You're lucky to be breathing.
That's just great. Colonel, you came out
here to find out why one of your machines blew a gasket. You don't
seem to want to accept the fact that you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla
warfare, with a man who's the best with
guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained
to ignore pain, ignore weather,
to live off the land, to eat things that'll make a billy goat puke.
In Vietnam, his job was to dispose of enemy personnel,
to kill, period. Win by attrition.
Well, Rambo was the best.
It's 2 Dads 1 Movie.
It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and shoot
the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts,
Steve Paulo Paulo and Nic Briana.
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of 2 Dads, 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nic. And today we are diving into 1982
into rural Washington, and we're going to travel along
with vagrant Vietnam vet— that's a lot of Vs. That's good alliteration.
I like that one. John Rambo in First Blood.
And Nic, you brought First Blood to the table for us. Tell us a little
bit about why we watched it this week. Yeah, so I became familiar
with the Rambo franchise initially through, I think, Part 2.
OK. That's the one I feel like more of the imagery and like
the things that people remember about Rambo come from. Yeah. Because that was
like, you know, the sequel after this thing that kind of came,
you know, was unexpectedly a way bigger hit than projected.
And I ended up going back and watching this years later. I'm sure I saw
this in college. I got the Rambo trilogy on DVD. Now there's like 9 Rambo
movies. Who would have thought when Stallone turned 58, they'd stop making them? But no,
there's like a ton more since then. Um, and I just like
the, like, the indestructible Superman-type character.
Sign me up every damn time. Uh, I love the Rambo shit.
Stallone cracks me up. He is not a clever one-liner
guy like Schwarzenegger. Right, yeah, good point. He is an unintentional comedy guy,
which I really enjoy. Like, he's not trying to be funny, but I am rolling,
laughing my ass off when I'm watching him. Um, so yeah, it's some fun Stallone.
And I do like the way they set up Rambo's story, 'cause if you just
start in Rambo II, you're just kinda like, oh, this is like— there's no way
that this is a real guy. Like, it's too illogical.
And look, this movie is plenty fucking illogical, but it does a nice
job of kind of bringing you from this Triple V, you know,
a, uh, a Vietnam vet who's
just, you know, trying to find some friends, and you see how that can escalate
so quickly if you don't do exactly what the cops say. Yep. This is also
a clear ACAB, uh, movie as well. Um, for For my
part, I realized in watching this, I have actually never watched front
to back any of the Rambo movies. All right. Somehow they all passed me.
You know, I'm well familiar conceptually with what each one of them represented.
That First Blood was, yeah, it was in America. It was like, you know,
the things I knew about it were like in America, not as bombastic, much quieter,
smaller movie in a lot of ways. Rambo: First Blood Part II, in Vietnam,
going back to rescue POWs. Like, that's kind of all I knew. And then a—
but then a bigger spectacle, right? Like missile launchers and like bigger stuff.
Also huge box office. That movie made $300 or $400 million.
Yeah. Really, really enormous. Gigantic. And then Rambo III was like Afghanistan.
I think that's where there's like, he, I remember something
about him like pulling an arrow out of his arm or something. I think that
might've been, or there were arrows involved in Rambo III. He, something like that.
But he gets kitted out with this bow and arrow where there's like different tips
that he can screw onto the arrows. And there's just endless possibilities for delight in
this. Unfortunately, in this one, he's kind of stuck with whatever he has and whatever
he finds. Right, it's a much more grounded, reality-oriented thing. Um,
but yeah, so I was like excited to watch it because like, I just in
my mind, uh, of the Rambo movies, I thought, well, this is going to be
like, you know, this is considered maybe like the best movie. Yeah. In a lot
of sense, you know, the, the film has a story to tell and all this
stuff. So I was super excited to get into it. But, you know, that's a
big blind spot in my, uh, sort of '80s and '90s movie understanding
is, is not really, you know, really only knowing the Rambo movies by reputation.
Yeah. More than anything else. So yeah, very excited to, to jump into this
with you, Nic. And let's get started on the facts on First
Blood. Uh, the film First Blood was released on October 22nd,
1982 with an R rating and a running time of 93 minutes.
Directed by Ted Kotcheff, it was written by quite a few people.
Uh, Michael Cazale and William Sackheim, and separately Sylvester
Stallone, all got credits on the screenplay. Uh, and it was based on the novel
by David Morrell. It stars Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, and Richard
Crenna. Scores: 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, very high, and IMDb
7.7, also really high. Yeah. Uh, we get a thumbs
down from the dickhead Gene Siskel and a thumbs up from The
brother, Roger Ebert. Love you, Rog. I'm always up for Ebs.
No major awards or nominations to refer to. There was, I don't know, the Jupiter
Awards, which I think is like maybe a European thing, gave some recognition
to this film in the categories under international film or foreign film. Nice. So that
was interesting, but you know, nothing major. On a $15 million budget, which like,
I know it's '82, so $15 million better go a long way, but there's like
a lot of really great practical effects in this movie. You know,
really wonderful stuff with some of the weaponry and different things they did. I really
enjoyed it. Lots of good explosions. It pulled in $125.2
million at the box office, over 8 times what it cost.
It is a certified, bona fide blockbuster. Nice.
So yeah, those are the facts on First Blood. And Nic, why don't you
kick us off, man? How does this movie start? Yeah, so we start off
and we've got some real beautiful kind of establishing shots— Gorgeous.
—of the Pacific Northwest and a very sad instrumental
of what ends up being the theme song to them. to the film, uh,
and throughout the Rambo movies. It's kind of like the Rambo song,
although at the end of this one they do play the song with lyrics,
and I don't know why it makes me laugh so hard when it's with the
lyrics. I just— it's so funny to me. Um, but we've got John Rambo,
and he's looking like a little disheveled. Yeah. He's got his army jacket
on and stuff. He's clearly like a drifter. He's got, you know, his pack
and everything, longer hair, a little unshaven, and he's walking up to
this house which is like supposed to be just like a rundown,
like very kind of poor place in the most beautiful location ever. Beautiful lakefront
property, right? Like this is a big sandpit for the kids to play in.
Like, and even before it shows the water, just the scene where Rambo's
walking down the road, it's like staged for a Bob Ross painting,
basically. Happy little trees. And, um, so, so what he's trying
to do is he's looking for this old war buddy of his named Delmar Barry.
And, uh, and he's talking to this woman there who's hanging laundry on a line
and seems disinterested in talking to anybody who's
from the Army, from the government. So he really has to explain to her.
He's like, no, like, me and Delmar were friends. Hey, here's a pic.
Good. Again, Stallone is very endearing when
he's just being like such a simpleton, you know? Like the way he can
be in Rocky a little bit. And probably just a lot of it has to
do with the real way that he talks and everything. The showing the picture here
to, as we later find out, Delmar Barry's widow. Delmar has died.
But the picture and the stuff, for some reason, made me think of
him talking to the character's son in Over the Top and talking
about your mom. Your mom and me, like, whatever. And it's this very, like,
sentimental kind of thing. He overexplains. It's like the way that he talks, like,
it's inefficient, but it's so realistic. He's like, oh, here's a picture
of us. And, you know, Delmar had to stand in the back. He's so
big. He's like, I just like— I like that.
That bit of acting from Stallone, I think, is kind of uniquely Stallone. And it
does— it, like, it adds a lot to this character. He's basically the best actor
to play a character with a 70 IQ. Like, that's really just like—
100%. So yeah, so he finds out,
you know, no, Delmar died a couple years ago. He died of cancer. I think
it's that stuff they were spraying, you know, Agent Orange and all these things that—
so in 1982, I mean, we're like, what, 6, 7 years removed
from the end of the Vietnam War? Yeah, that quote, end of the Vietnam War.
Um, and, uh, and, you know, this stuff is coming out that
there's these long-term effects of things that the soldiers were exposed to there that
are just decimating their lives and everything. So, and it seems
like from the way that Rambo reacts to this news that like This is the
3rd or 4th guy he's heard something like that about. Yeah, because he's going through,
like, with his picture, you assume that he's just been kind of looking for his
old friends. Well, and here's the thing, you know that because he leaves the picture
with her. Yeah, he leaves the picture with her. And I think there's like— almost
like that's the last guy that was alive. And there's also— he had a little
book with him where Delmar wrote, uh, the address down that he was looking for,
everything. And that little book he like throws into like a garbage pile,
uh, as he walks over a fire pit or something. Like, so he's, he's done.
I mean, that's it. He's got nothing else to like Look for. Yeah, right.
I mean, this is like clearly like because when I first was watching, I was
like, why would he leave the photo? Doesn't he want the picture to find the
other guy? Oh yeah. Oh, there's nowhere else. No one else to find. Like he's
that's it. Very sad. Yeah, no. So he's so he's going into just
triple V mode and kind of like walks off out of there, right? Yep.
Now we get kind of a shot of the town. We have this beautiful kind
of like small town. Yeah. One of those nice looking places.
And there's a sign that says Gateway to Holidayland.
Welcome to Hope, right? So oh, what a welcoming, wonderful place. Fuck is Holidayland?
And I don't know. That's supposed to be— I don't know why you would say
that. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and Brian Dennehy is
playing— he's Sheriff Will Teasle. Yeah. Uh, and he's, oh, saying hi to everyone.
Oh, let me help you put those groceries in the car. Hey, you better stay
out of trouble. And just, hey, I'm just being a small town sheriff. Oh yeah,
I got eyes on everything, and things stay right in this town because I'm around.
And, uh, so yeah, he's very nice and very gregarious towards everybody
in town, and I'm sure he'll stay that way forever. Oh, totally sweet guy.
No problems with him whatsoever until half, half a nanosecond later, he spots Our
hero John Rambo just walking down the street, walking while a vet apparently.
Yep. Um, and, uh, kind of rolls up on him and goes like, hey,
uh, you're visiting somebody? And he goes, no, I'm just, just passing through.
Oh well, um, let me give you a ride. Let me help you pass through.
And so he basically even tells him, you know, you're asking for trouble wearing
that flag on your shirt, which is like, look, I get that we're
pushing the whole America hates the Vietnam vets thing, which, you know,
we were talking before the pod, maybe, maybe that was A little more propaganda than
reality as far as— Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably been borne out,
is like the— a lot of the stories about the spitting and stuff, not that
that didn't happen at all, but that wasn't the prevalent experience
of people returning from the war. Although, you know, someone who has kind of the
look of a vagrant or a homeless person who has the flag on, that's something
that, uh, and to this day, this is something Americans do not want to
reconcile with. They don't want to reconcile with the fact that This guy in a
wheelchair lives on a bus bench because of something that, that he was
sent to do on behalf of our country. Like, so instead of reconciling with that,
it's better to just vilify that person. I just thought it was interesting that he
specifically— the sheriff specifically calls out wearing that flag on your shirt when he has
the same flag on the shoulder of his jacket. Yeah, I thought that was just
an interesting take. But basically— But it's not like you're—
we don't like you because you're pro-American. It's like you put the American flag on
that piece of shit. Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah. So but it is something
that took me a little, not having seen this before, and so therefore And obviously
not really being alive or cognitively cognizant when
this stuff was going on. Yeah, you know, if it was happening in the early
'80s, we were babies. So, um, it's always so weird to me because,
you know, especially post-9/11, uh, even as people will
disagree on the purpose of, of American military involvement around the world
or protest the involvement of the American military around the world, there's still a pretty
good understanding that like the troops, even though today it's an all-volunteer
military, where people are not being drafted and conscripted into the military, there's still a
pretty good understanding of like, we don't hold the like individual soldiers like
responsible for the choices of the leadership, right? And the decisions of the leaders to
go somewhere and do something. You know, it's like, look, what, you know, should they
have done that job or a different job? I don't know. That's a whole fucking
moral argument you could make. But the fact is they were there doing a job.
And like, it feels like the general tenor, uh, in the country is not
to like blame the troops. No. For this shit. Whereas it feels like, at least
in media back then, those returning from Vietnam, like you were saying, like there was
at least a, um, you know, a narrative around people just,
you know, really hating the returning troops, right? Well, I think there's also
a goal of, of taking any kind of anti-war sentiment,
yeah, and twisting that into being anti-troop, because that's an
easy— talk about people who don't like identity politics, supposedly. I mean,
that's one of the greatest examples of identity politics in the history of this country,
is we're able to turn legitimate concerns like, hey, maybe we shouldn't bomb people,
maybe we shouldn't fucking kill a million people for whatever reason
into, oh, that's 'cause you hate this troop. That's 'cause this guy who lost a
leg for you, for you to be able to say that. And you know what?
You shouldn't be able to. Wait a minute. Fuck. Shit.
So yeah, it sucks. Good old moral catch-22. For the most part, like,
the people who are in the position to actually serve in the Army, especially the
ones who are seeing combat, are like the kind
of poorest and most marginalized people in our country. whether or not they're drafted
into it or not. So that's not where the ire is directed at, but it
does— this movie really tries to make it seem like that's what people are mad
at. And certainly that's what Sheriff Teasle is sort of leaning on. But he
offers John Rambo a ride out of town. He says, you know, he's like,
you got some place for me to eat around here? And he goes, yeah,
there's a diner 30 miles up the road. It's like, for one thing, he's not
driving him 30 miles. He's not offering that. He's just offering to drive him like
across this little bridge. He drives him. Yeah. So he does
like— there's a great episode of The Wonder Years where the older brother Wayne,
who's kind of like the dickish older brother gets his license
and he's tasked with like driving the kids places. And he's supposed to take them
to the mall and he drives them like to the very far edge of the
parking lot. And he's like, well, this is technically the mall. And Will Teasle definitely
technically gives him a ride out of town because he drops him like right at
the edge. And he's like— There's a little sign that says they're going the other
direction. Welcome to Hope. Or they're now entering Hope. Like, and being friendly.
But the whole time, I mean, he's being so menacing without directly threatening him.
He's like, well, you know, the law around here is me. Things are quiet and
they're quiet. And that's how I like them here and everything. Uh, if I can
give you some advice, get a haircut and take a bath. I hope this ride
helped. And he drives away like a piece of crap, right? So Rambo— and
Rambo is so like also somebody who has,
I like, issues with like social issues for
sure. Like he's just, he's given like one-word answers and
everything. But Rambo gets out of the car and just starts walking back into town.
He wants, he wants a meal. Like, I mean, that's literally his thought is like,
I'm not walking 30 more miles. And I'm coming to offer commerce
to this town. Yeah, yeah. And do the thing the restaurant is set up for,
right? Yep. So, so Teasel can't deal with that because
the number one crime in America is disrespecting a police officer,
right? And he commits that crime and, uh, he basically is put
under arrest for like— Well, he gets put under arrest for resisting arrest.
Resisting arrest, which is my fucking favorite. Oh my God. He says something like
vagrancy, right? Which I guess, okay, there's, there's laws against it. Fine. So he gets
arrested for vagrancy, resisting arrest, and there was something else he said I remember now,
but they were all kind of just obviously bullshit type, you know, charges. Um,
but you know, He gets arrested, gets taken in, and there's
like all these points here where Rambo is interacting with either Teasle
or with the other cops at the sheriff's station, whatever it is, where he's getting
flashbacks. He's getting these PTSD-oriented flashbacks from Vietnam where clearly
he was a prisoner of war for a while. He was tortured. He was,
you know, attacked with knives and like whipped and like all kinds of crazy shit.
And we keep getting these like flashes and they're very, um, jarring. Yeah.
You know, as well they're supposed to be. Um, but he's really like—
Rambo's not making it easy for them. He doesn't want to get fingerprinted. So they
try to fingerprint him and he's just like keeping his hand off of there and
stuff. And he's standing on his business that like, I didn't do anything wrong.
I don't need to cooperate. I'm not hurting anyone. I'm just not going to do
what you're telling me to do. Exactly. Uh, he has— they pull out the classic
Rambo knife off his, uh, out from his pants and stuff. And he's like,
what's this knife for? He's like, hunting. He's like, what are you hunting out there?
Name it. I love that. Just short answers. Yeah.
So when they're fingerprinting him, it's funny. The cop is so hilarious
the way he's getting so free. He's like, put your hand down, roll it across
the paper, roll it across. And he's trying to like move his hand that's covered
in ink. And I think this was a time where Stallone was like, hey,
I'm pretty good at like using one arm to be really strong. I should make
a movie about that someday. Someday. And I think that was David
Caruso, right? Who's the cop doing that? Yeah, whatever.
Yeah. So yeah, all these cops, like every cop that sees him come
in, they're doing the like, oh, get a load of this guy. Oh, look what
you pulled off the street. street kind of thing, right?
Uh, and they tell him that his crime could
be subject to— because he's not cooperating or whatever— 90 days in
jail and a $250 fine, which it looks like he can't pay. I mean,
which would probably mean then more jail time. Yeah, probably, right? Yeah. Or you just
wouldn't get let out until you can pay the fine or something. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
But yeah, but they take a fire hose to him to clean him off.
Yeah, they threaten to shave him dry with like a straight razor, which is like—
that really sets off his PTSD because, you know, we see that he's been— he
was attacked by like a Vietnamese soldier or whatever, you know, with knife, and like
they're coming at him with this straight razor and all this stuff. And that's when
he fully loses it and he starts kicking, punching, throwing guys into— you know,
he's like doing the headbutt, the guy holding behind him, he's doing the full thing,
fucking up every cop in this place. Oh my God,
they're, um, the cops, with the exception of
the David Caruso character. Yeah, yeah, who's like the younger guy in the force
who's saying like, hey, like, watch out,
like, can't you see this guy is crazy? Like, you gotta watch out for this.
Not really being too sympathetic, but at least like, do we need to use a
fire hose? Safety Let's not do this. Yeah, and while they're fire hosing
him, all the other cops are watching with such pleasure. Like, ah ha ha!
The main cop who's kind of antagonizing him outside identity Dennehy
is this guy named Galt. Yeah, that's right. Who has like a real good like
Sam Elliott style deep voice, right? Yeah. So Rambo
takes these motherfuckers out. So he takes out like four guys. Four five.
Yeah. Bottom part. There's guys who get it who don't
even like have it coming. He runs into the lobby, and for some reason there's
a guy with a box. And he just like sweep kicks that guy to the
ground. There's guys just like— he's going out of his way to make sure to
elbow people and stuff. But he ends up getting out of the police
station, out of the front door. He— and he got his knife back.
Yes, that's the one thing he's able to claim. He doesn't have his jacket or
his pack, but he gets his knife. Yeah, so he has like a tank top
and pants on right now. He doesn't have much going on. And he gets
out there and he's like, oh shit, well now I have committed a crime,
right? Yeah, I need some wheels for that. And of course does
a great fake-out move on a guy who's driving a dirt bike down the street.
He steps in front of him and gives the kind of like, ho ho ho,
Deke, like side-to-side move, and now he's in possession of the dirt bike, the official
vehicle of crime. Love it, love it. We're gonna put that on the website.
Yep. So, um, so he is driving off and they run
out, the cops run out, and Galt has got a sniper rifle kind of thing
and he aims it. And then he's like, damn it, Galt, you know, like,
don't shoot because there's people. So at least then he's got some sense to him.
Yeah. Galt though Just wants to kill him. Yeah, he's just like seeing blood
for sure. So then he jumps into his cruiser and starts chasing off after,
uh, after Rambo. And this is one of the best early scenes of action here.
It's a great chase scene. They start in town, they're racing through town,
you know, and then they're going through the mountain roads. And obviously a dirt bike
is just going to be much more kind of capable on like dirt roads and
stuff because you see the cruiser is just fishtailing left and right and every turn
is a struggle. It is like the most indestructible cop car for a while.
You think like these things that it goes through, you're like, how is it not
destroyed immediately, right? So, but eventually they get up another kind of like,
like high road, like a really steep dirt muddy road,
and the, the cruiser like flips over. It actually flips onto its roof,
and, and Denny, he has to climb out unscathed, it seems. Yeah. Completely unscathed.
Um, but even Rambo loses the bike trying to go up a hill, and it's
just too steep, and it, you know, it stops and he falls off. It's now
he's on foot. Denny, he's on foot calling back for like backup and stuff.
And it's just now we're in the woods, and it's like, you know, he's got
to sort of hide slash try to provide, you know,
get himself some provisions or something that he can like work with. Yeah,
because he's in full— I mean, he's in like, like escape mode,
survival mode. He's got to improv a lot of stuff. Um, it shows how cold
he is. He's shivering a lot. I mean, it's, you know, this is, this is,
uh, I feel like it's December. Like we'll mention later, there are a few points
in the cop station where you see some like Christmas decorations and things. So we
could have made this a Christmas movie. Um, another Sylvester Stallone Christmas.
Exactly, that'd be perfect. Um, but, but, you know, it's very cold, rural Washington Washington,
you know, that's gonna be freezing. And so he's looking around and he finds this,
like, looks like old construction equipment or something, maybe an old, like, rail station,
or, or I think it's near a mine. Yeah, yeah, something like that. But there's
stuff around, so he's able to, like, find a tarp to turn into, like,
a poncho. And he kind of starts getting himself stuff while the cops start building
up their presence a little lower down the mountain. Then he's called in all of
his buddies and they're getting ready to do a manhunt, right? And they've got,
and they've got dogs, uh, they've got Dobermans, the official attack dog
of the '80s. That's right. Uh, and we've got a helicopter as well. So the
cops and resources, there's probably like 4 or 5 cops on
foot with the dog guy and the dog. And then the helicopter is also like—
And it's not like a police helicopter because like, so Denny, he calls down,
he got to get so-and-so with the dogs. And he says, it's going to rain,
make them bring the Dobermans because they can hunt by sight. Basically, they don't have
to have the— they're like a bloodhound. Um, but then he also is like saying,
and get, you know, so-and-so, I don't remember the character's name, with the helicopter.
And if he gives you any, any problem for it, tell him it's obstruction of
justice, make him get up here. So it's obviously like a civilian that they're like
commandeering to get the helicopter involved. Which shows that this movie took place
in 1982 and not now, because a town the size of Hope
would have 9 Black Hawk attack copters owned by the police department,
as well as like multiple armored vehicles. Um, the police have
themselves an RV. Um,
so we— this whole, like, all of the revenge,
like him beating the guys up and getting away, it's very exciting. This is like
a really good scene. Uh, and he ends up like running through the woods.
The dogs are after him. He's not that far ahead of them because he's been
hobbled and stuff, and then he's going They were way out in
front. And they're moving a little slower uphill. So he is kind of like,
you know, getting away in a sense. But yeah. But then he gets to the
end and he looks down and it's just like a sheer cliff. Ridiculous. Very Richard
Kimball style, right? You know, actually the one I thought of when I saw it
was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
You ever seen that one? They end up on a cliff. They gotta jump into
a river from like this cliff to get away from the Bolivian army. But yeah.
It was River Wild also where the dad ends up, you know.
So we got some good cliff action. So way too high for him to jump.
Right, so he starts kind of climbing. He's like climbing down,
but also just trying to like cling to the sides so
he can't be seen. Yep, and he is making some good Stallone noises
throughout this scene. There's a lot of
so the helicopter comes through this ravine, so they can see
him on the cliff. And in this helicopter is Galt, who's the cop, the Sam
Elliott voice guy from before with his rifle, and he's not. Trying to
arrest anybody. No, and then he's yelling over the over the radio
like I want him alive. Stop because they can hear the gunshots. Then he calls
over because yeah because Galt starts shooting at him and missing. But then he can
hear the gunshots. He's like Galt, Galt, stop it! I want him alive. We got
to arrest him. Don't you know? Stop shooting or whatever. Because you know they're at
least as far as they're aware he's not armed. He's got the knife or whatever.
He's not shooting anybody. Right? You know so they can tell that. But basically like
Rambo has to make a call here because the the helicopter is getting steadier and
steadier and closer and closer. And he's He's like fully exposed. I mean, there's nowhere
to hide where he is, so he just jumps. He kind of lets go and
kind of jumps at a tree, which like, this is a little super
soldier-y, don't get me wrong. It's not like a human being should do this,
but if you're gonna fall that far, like the only chance you have of
surviving is going through a tree. Sure. Yeah, because you can break the fall a
little bit, and if you don't break bones on the way down, maybe you're okay.
And of course he's fine. Yeah, and he, he breaks his fall with the tree.
The dive that he takes from the cliff to the tree looks like it's
40 feet before he even hits the top of the tree. And then it's just
like, it's one thing to like be near the top of the tree and sort
of fall down it branch to branch. Yeah, yeah. To leap and have to free
fall that far just to reach the tree, right? You're probably fucked. Like, that's not—
you're not surviving that. But John Rambo— John Rambo survives it. That's not going to
be close to the worst thing that happens to John Rambo. Yeah,
so he's down there and he is injured, um, but not like
fully debilitated, so he can still move. But the helicopter now is like in this
ravine and lower, and the helicopter pilot's like, hey,
this is like not safe to be in here. Right. Like, I'm gonna lose control
of this thing, whatever. There's a storm coming, all that shit. And Danny, he's still
yelling over the radio about stop shooting, like whatever, all this stuff. And it's like,
look, at this point you're talking about murder. Yeah. Like, the man is at the
bottom of a ravine. You've got him covered. You know where he is. There's other
cops coming. Like, arrest him. Like, you know what I mean? There's no reason to
shoot him now. And so to defend himself, Rambo finds a pretty big rock
and he hurls it up at the helicopter. And it, like, breaks and kind of
shatters part of the front windshield. But that makes the helicopter pilot, like, jerk the
thing, and Gault falls about 30, 40 feet, probably, out of the helicopter.
No tree. No tree. Straight onto a rock. So he's done.
And now John Rambo has a gun. Ho,
ho, ho. Dude, absolutely.
Absolutely. Now I have a machine gun moment. So yeah,
Gault falls, immediately dead. Satisfying to see that guy go out, 'cause he was,
like, a true psycho, right? Of the shitty cops in this movie, clearly the shittiest.
The worst one, right? Right. Um, we've got Rambo quickly
doing a little self-surgery, just like in Predator and Roadhouse. We very
much enjoy that. And, uh, and he comes out to the cops,
are, you know, they see that Gault is down there, and he comes out,
he's like, there's one man dead. I don't want any— like,
I don't want any harm. Like, this is just something that happened.
But again, cops see a dead cop, just like in The Fugitive.
Like, yes. I'm sorry, you don't have a chance. Like, you're not gonna
get taken alive, at least in that moment. Like, no,
no, they just start firing at him and, you know, he's, I didn't do anything,
and all this stuff. And then they— so let me ask you this as a
connoisseur of the Rambo franchise. Yeah, so it looks like
John Rambo gets shot in the head. He gets shot and he kind of like
grabs at his eye or his face or his head, and the next time we
see him, he's got that classic Rambo like headband tied around
his head. We never get any other indication that he suffered
a significant injury to his head. There's not blood running down his face. What the
fuck happened there? What is that? My only thought was that it was a ricochet
of something that got him in the head, maybe like a piece of rock or
something else, or just like it very barely grazed him, 'cause he does clearly react
to getting hit in the head. Right. Yeah, and then he's got his headband.
The headband thing, but there's not really any mention of it. I almost feel like
there's a deleted scene somewhere that explains a little more about what happened. But,
but yeah, so he does get shot and he has to then run away because
now he knows like they're not just gonna take him alive. Like, he can't just
surrender basically. Yeah. He has to like defend himself. And in the meantime,
so when the cops had him at first, he wasn't giving them
information. They ripped his dog tag off. That's right. And of course were belittling
him for having a dog tag. This is kind of another media
thing, is that between the generations, right, if you had like the World War II
generation, right, looking at the Vietnam vet generation, and they
had this attitude of like, well, Well, at least we won our war. Like that
kind of shit. As if— I mean, look, the individual soldier has no say in
whether or not you win or lose that war. Um,
but they looked up his information in the meantime, so, uh,
they're reporting this to the cops. They're saying like, okay, he was a former Green
Beret, he's won a Congressional Medal of Honor and everything. He's a
war hero. David Caruso is like, I knew there was something about
that guy. I love how much he loves Rambo's shit throughout the As his
friends are dying around him, he's like, hey, that guy's awesome!
I told you guys he was special. Y'all never listen to me. I should
wear my sunglasses more. So now we know what's up, uh, move to Miami with
Rambo, right? And the— but the storm, the rainstorm. Oh, that's right.
Now, yeah, it's starting to storm. The cops have got to kind of regroup,
and they've got their cute little raincoats on their hats so that the hats
look like— First note right here, I love that shit so much. It makes them
look like like such immense pansies. It's the silliest thing in the world.
Coats on their hats, dude. Like, just let your hat get wet or take off
the stupid cowboy hat. You're in Washington, not fucking New Mexico. You would look cooler
just carrying a parasol like Farnsworth Bentley or something like
that. Like, yeah, it's such a funny look. The hat bags always get me.
I really enjoy that. Yeah. Uh, and the other cops are like, you know,
giving Caruso a hard time because they're just like— because he, he's basically like,
we should be careful, we don't know what this guy's capable of. And they're
kind of like, don't be a pussy, you just saw another cop get killed,
like, I'll kill you if you don't help. Right, which is wild. But yeah,
they literally do say something along those lines. And then it's like— and then their
argument is basically like, it doesn't matter who he is, he's one guy, we have
guns. Now they also know that Rambo took— well, they don't— I guess they
don't know for sure that they took— that he took Galt's gun yet.
Terrible police work. Yeah, they discover the body of a guy who was known to
have a gun and definitely didn't have on the jacket jacket that he was wearing
when he fell. That's true. Yeah, yeah. And they're just like— and they mentioned him
taking the radio. They mentioned him taking the radio, so they know he's got the
radio. They saw, you know, they can tell that Galt's not wearing a jacket,
whatever. There's also John McClane here, right? He's got his radio, he's got his gun,
he's getting some clothes, he's got shoes luckily. Yeah, that's true. Um,
but he kind of sets up, uh, we see him setting something up, Rambo,
and it's not super clear right away what it is. But as the dogs and
the cops are coming through the forest, it's starting to rain, it's super dark,
you know, whatever. They see what looks like a figure and they basically open fire
and set the dogs off on him. And, uh, there's somebody
gets shot and it's hard to tell if one of the cops shoots the dog
guy or if Rambo does. Really hard to tell. But we do hear gunshots
and dogs whimpering, so the dogs get killed. Yep. 2 of them— They do mention
the dogs getting killed. 2 of them get shot and one of them, it sounds
like, gets killed with a knife, maybe because they don't hear a gunshot and they
mention that. Um, but really it was just he took the jacket from Gault and
like set it up on like a stick to make like a scarecrow kind of
thing, like a like a decoy. So now they start
wandering through the cops, and they've got the dog owner guy is hurt. The dogs
are dead. Gault's dead. They're all start wandering through the the the
the thing through through the woods, and he's like hiding and
like jumping up at them and like coming out of the trees. It is cool.
I mean, it's great like guerrilla warfare. Like he's such a
ghost in this situation and just popping out everywhere, and he has laid
these very elaborate. For how much time he had to set them up.
Yeah, not very much time and very good. That entire
spike strip thing that one of the cops walks into— I could figure out how
to spring-load a log, you know, and perfectly like whittle everything
down within 20 minutes. Oh my God, if that. You know, this is, this is
Rambo. We love him. Yep. Uh, so one of the guys,
uh, so they end up like having these various fates, and then we see one
of the cops named Singleton who's tied up, tied to a tree with this wire
and everything. And they go to— they go to get him, and Rambo pops
out with a knife. Yep. Will Teasle goes to get Singleton. Rambo puts a
knife to his head, basically saying, I could have killed them all.
I could have killed you. Right. And he goes, in town, you're the
law. Out here, it's me. Yep. Which— beautiful.
Let it go. He says, let it go. Oh yeah. And that's Teasle's
chance. He could just— and honestly, I mean, from Rambo's perspective,
this is the best thing I can do to show you that I'm not uh,
that I'm not a danger to you is actually become a danger to you and
then not kill you. Yeah, it makes— honestly, it's good logic. It's basically saying,
I need to show you I can get you, that I can beat you if
you make this a thing. Yeah. But also that I'm not some psycho that's just
out here killing to kill, right? That's— that's— he nails that tenor just
right, which is not— that's a— that's a thin line. That's a real thin line
he walks on, but he does it. You know, with the egos involved, it is
impossible to pull that off because you can't have a knife to your throat and
then be like, like, okay, cool, I'll let him go. Bye-bye. No, fair. But it
is like you were saying, it's kind of the only thing Rambo could do.
The best strategy he had there. Only thing he could do. Um, so at this
point now we've called in the cavalry. Yeah, there's news,
there's the National Guard, state police, we got the National Guard, there's army jeeps
and all this stuff. Uh, I was thinking this would be maybe a, a potential
hashtag because it happens in a lot of, uh, films that we have. Yeah,
jurisdiction fight. Oh yeah, right. Who's jurisdiction? Because they hate when the feds come
in and try to take over. This is my crime scene. Oh, thanks for your
Sheriff, we'll be taking it from here. All that kind of stuff. Die Hard,
The Fugitive. Oh man, there's a lot of these there, right?
It's everywhere. Uh, jurisdictional grievance, maybe that's what we could call it. Yeah,
yeah. But yeah, so there's all this stuff going on, and, and the state police
guy is there to kind of talk to Will Teasle, Sheriff Teasle. And, and Teasle's
like, you know, like, oh, this guy did this, because he's basically trying to play
the victim. This guy came after a cop, he killed a cop, like all this
stuff. It's like, like, what was his crime? And he kind of like doesn't get
into like, you know, what exactly he's being arrested for. And that's when,
uh, sort of the next— Well, the news drops quickly where someone says,
well, you know, one of our deputies said that Galt was actually really hard
on Rambo before, was really rough with him, right? So Dennehy dismisses
that, and then he's like, what kind of a God would make a man like
this? And then probably the best laugh line of the whole movie,
right? We got, we got Richard Crenna, we got Colonel Trautman,
who walks in, he's like, God didn't make Rambo. I made
him. I made him. And goes into an awesome fucking
speech about how Rambo is the best and how he's
been trained to eat things that make a billy goat puke
and survive and all these things. He's trained to ignore weather, to ignore pain,
to— oh, I just want someone to talk to me the way that Colonel Trautman
talks about Rambo. The, uh, the audience will have heard that at the beginning of
this episode, I assure you. Yes, thank you. That was when I was watching the
movie. I marked that as like, oh well, This is the intro clip. Like,
it is, it is so good. Yeah. Um, and, uh,
and you know, as far as this being a non-comedy that is hilarious,
this is the kind of shit that tickles me to no end. I was laughing
so hard during that. I really like it. We get with Trautman's appearance,
we do get this sort of, uh, struggle or this, this, uh,
conflict between him and Teasle. And it's sort of like, it's the engine
for like the rest of the movie, which is sort of like, what do you
do about Rambo now? Because you've got a situation where Guy who never should have
been in that police station to begin with, should have been left alone, let go,
get a fucking bite of food, and on his way. You know, now he's in
a position where he has committed significant crimes. Yep. Including, like, attempted murder
and, like, all this other stuff, right? So, uh, there's— there's no way
to just be like, Rambo gets to leave. Even Trautman
says, if you back off now, a couple days from now, he'll leave
these mountains, and he'll— you'll pick him up working at a car wash in Seattle
or something. Like, he'll resurface. It's not like he's gonna stay hidden, so you'll be
able to get him. But if you try to do it this way, you're all
fucking dead. This is him in his, like, trained battle
arena. Like, you are literally walking into the type of scenario that he
was specifically trained to do. You're fucked. And it's an interesting thing, 'cause Trauma's
not saying, let him go. He's saying, let him go for now. And he's almost
playing the role of, like, the Jurassic Park person if there's,
like, a T-Rex on the loose, where it's like, yeah, we gotta do something about
it, but let me tell you how this thing operates so that you can actually
know how to deal with it. Yeah, he's like a game warden for John Rambo.
Yeah, dude. For sure.
Um, yeah, so Trautman serves like a really good, uh,
purpose here. And, um,
so they say, uh, they say something about, um, well,
we got 200 men coming here. And Trautman's like, well,
if you are going to send 200 men after him, there's one other thing you
have to send: a good supply of body bags.
Like, how about 200 body bags? Well, I think he's saying
He won't kill everybody. He's just gonna kill a shitload of guys.
Like, eventually you'll back off before all 200 die, I think is maybe what he's
saying. And there's a quick shot. So as Trautman's kind of talking
about Rambo's ability to survive, there's a shot of Rambo like hunting
a wild boar. Just like jumps down and kills it. And then one of
my favorite things, 'cause I don't like seeing the animal actually killed or butchered,
just the quick cut to him carrying the big old leg of boar on his
shoulder. The hock, the ham hock. Yeah, yeah. And then he's found himself a little
like an old mine or something to sort of hang out in. and he's built
a fire and he's sort of, you know, been able to— he cooks the hog
there and it's clearly where, you know, he's like sleeping.
And there's— I think they're trying to get ahold of him on the radio,
right? Yeah. So Trautman and Teasle are back at the National Guard kind of comms
tent and there's a guy, you know, like, like, like, John Rambo, like, please come
in, like, or whatever. And he's not responding, but we see him, you know,
he's got the radio and he can hear it. And they're just like—
he's like, yeah, he's not gonna give up his position for you. Like, if you,
you know, which I don't really understand that much about this kind of technology,
but apparently you can like triangulate a handheld radio
based on I don't know what because yeah it doesn't work like cell phones would
work because cell phones would be off of a cell tower many years later obviously
so there you have multiple cell towers the signal is coming directly
from the radio then there's a way to like zone in on it something yeah
something so yeah so they're able to do that and try to do that but
they can't get him to respond if he doesn't you know start talking through it
then that doesn't do them any good um so they do convince Troutman to to
reach out to him basically yeah be like like, you know, and he says he's
using all the code words, right? I don't remember exactly, so something about Raven,
come in, this is so-and-so, or whatever. It's apparently Rambo's code name or something.
Yeah, and he's totally go— he's approaching this as if like, I'm dealing with a
guy who thinks that right now he is in the Vietnam War, and,
uh, and I have to like get, get through to him. So he's able to
finally get Rambo to, to pick up, and, you know, he— there's a little
chat back and forth, but, uh, Trautman's like, oh, you know,
you don't, you don't want to do this, you don't want to hurt all these
friendly civilians. And Rambo's like, there are no friendly civilians, you know,
referring to the way that he's treated, I'm sure, and everything. Yeah, but also one
of the first indications— because by the end of this movie, like, it's hard to
root for John Rambo. The way he fucks that town up later is like,
okay, bro, like, chill out, right? So this is a point where the first time
where I went, that's a scary fucking thing for a guy like this to say.
Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, there's not a lot of sympathy for me
to— I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who says there are no
friendly civilians. Oh, totally. That is pretty dark. Now here's the other thing, he's using
civilians in the military versus non-military way.
Yeah. You can also sometimes— will be— will they will refer to— I guess maybe
the difference is more cops and citizens. I don't know, civilians. Sometimes that's a distinction
used to even mean non-police, non-law enforcement types, in which
case it would be a scarier thing for him to say. But he's lumping
all of these sheriffs and etc. in with, quote,
civilians, right? So for him, that's the sort of people who don't
like directly understand what it was like to be in the war and all that
stuff. 'Cause even, uh, even Trautman says, like, well, I'm a civilian now.
Right. 'Cause he was out and everything. He's working a desk job. Still gets to
wear the uniform. He works at the Pentagon. He's just at a desk job.
He's shining his ass with a chair. Yeah. Whatever it was.
Um, and so Rambo's like, you know, if it weren't for this king-shit
cop pushing me around, whatever. And Trautman's like, well, I understand that,
but there's a problem. He's like, they drew first blood, not me. They drew
first blood. He said it twice. And then Rambo kinda— he kinda goes into,
like, a revenge coma a little bit, you know?
But they were able to pinpoint his location because of that conversation.
And so now they've sent all these National Guard guys up and they find the
entrance to the mine that he's at. And they actually see him, I think,
like race back inside as they arrive and start shooting. So there's a little bit
of a gunfight that goes on. Basically, there's like this one National Guard dude.
And this is the funny part too, there's National Guard, but they're also treating them
like Army Reserves where it's like they're all dudes that like have regular jobs.
Like, is that how the National Guard— I actually don't know like how the National
Guard works. So I don't think National Guard is full-time. Okay. But yeah, that's a
good point. But they really— this guy says to me, I gotta be back at
the drugstore tomorrow. It is funny. I do like that they highlight kind of
the amateurishness of this, but I think it's also to, to draw a distinction between
like a real soldier like Rambo and Trautman and these pussy weekend warrior National Guard
guys. Right. Again, so much right-wing propaganda. Yeah.
Yeah. So yeah, the National Guard, they're all kind of like chickening out.
They're like, they don't want to shoot at them. They're all ducked behind this.
And then the one guy's like, fuck it. Like, let's get the rocket launcher.
Right. And so stupid. I'm sorry if you're,
if you're not a full-time Military guy, you don't
get rocket launcher levels of weapons to fuck around with. Well, you shouldn't anyway.
That's for sure. That's all. Also, I was almost convinced we were going to get
a commando style shooting backwards moment out of this. Is this guy even
holding it the right way? Like, but sure enough, he was. It kind of blows
up the entrance to the mine, which if nothing else just collapses it, right?
They can't even tell if they hit anything or what, but now the entrance is
collapsed. The whole time, it's total like we fixed the
glitched solution. Oh, so Rambo's dead? No, no,
no. I don't. I don't think you understand there, Professor. We collapsed the mine.
We collapsed the mine. Um, but the whole time Will Teasle's been on the radio
like, you know, wait till I get there, don't shoot, don't engage him,
don't go in, wait till I get there, wait till I get there. So then
he gets there and they're all taking like pictures like, like it's fucking Iwo Jima
or something, like, oh, Soldier of Fortune magazine and stuff. And he's like, I told
you guys to wait. And he's like, come on, Will, what are you talking about?
It's like, no, like, you don't just come on, Will, that shit. Like,
fucking wait. Um, and I think Trautman,
uh, now he's gotten word of like— I,
I think I'm sure people have been talking about the way the cops were treating
Rambo before, so he's kind of like, I know you have him on some bullshit,
like what are his crimes, right? Exactly. And he says vagrancy, and Trautman's
just like, oh, vagrancy, that's gonna look really great on his tombstone at Arlington.
War hero killed for vagrancy or whatever.
Yeah. Um, so, but now, uh, Rambo himself has got to find his way
through mind because, you know, they collapsed the front. But he's not dead, he's still
alive. Um, he finds a bunch of like oil or, or,
you know, kerosene or something that was left behind, whatever, and is able to like
make kind of a, a torch, um, to walk around. And as he's walking through,
he gets introduced to a shitload of rats, which is a new tag on
the website. This and this and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade have a shitload
of rats. Hell yeah, really, man. Good amount of rats. Oh my God, there's a
good amount of rats in that as well. We should add that one. But like,
it's, it's, it's all, altogether too many rats. Is this real? I would love—
you know what I would love to hear from is like a rat expert Is
this really what happens? Because that is terrifying, right? When they like attack,
like to try to stay out of the water or something. I don't know what
was going on. Dude, get out of here. Like they didn't seem scared enough by
this cool like torch that he made up. There was a quick shot of of
the Sheriff Teasel back in his office, and in his background he had
clearly some military medals there. That's true. So I don't know with the
age difference if he would probably have been a Korean War age person, right?
Probably. Um, so, uh, so Teasle and Trautman now are like in
town, you know, for the night. Like, okay, well, we'll go back after this killer
in the morning and, uh, and let's have some drinks. And he's talking to Trautman
about kind of like— Well, no, they think he's dead, right? Yeah, they all think
he's dead. And Trautman just— well, Trautman saw— so one of
the things that Trautman saw was some smoke, right? Was that— he saw a little
smoke coming up that he thought like, okay, this didn't have to do with the
implosion. This is like Something's— something's still in there, whatever.
Yeah, kind of thing. But he doesn't say anything to Teasle. Teasle's clearly operating under
the idea that Rambo's dead now. Um, but they are like, yeah, chatting. There's a
lot of— a lot of this movie is conversations between Trautman
and Teasle. Like, a whole lot of this movie is— is those 2 characters talk
to each other. They have more dialogue than Rambo by a lot. By a wide
margin. And they talk to each other more than any 2 other characters, you know,
talk to each other. And so there's a lot more kind of just conversation about
that. But basically we cut back to Rambo and he's— oh, oh, sorry.
And Teasle's like, you know, what he says to Trautman is like, so if you
do see him, like, would you wrap your arms around him or would you blow
his brains out? And Trautman says, uh, you know, I'd have to,
I'd have to get a look at him first. I have to see how he
is. Yeah. So, right, because, because if, if he's
calm, then I'm gonna— yeah, like, whatever. If he's coming out
like a psychotic, like he's had a break, yeah, yeah, we have to put him
down. Like, you know, more like a rabid dog. I mean, that's exactly the way
that he is kind of treated as this like invention that gets out of hand,
or this creation that gets out of hand. Monster. Yeah. Um,
so, so yeah, now we're back with Rambo, and he finds the exit. He finds
the exit from the mine, and he's able to climb up this ladder kind of
out of the mine, and it's real close to where a whole bunch of activity
is happening. He hasn't gone real far, um, but he's able to sort of perch
himself above the highway or the road there, and as a bunch of like trucks
go by, he jumps onto the last one in the line and slides
his way down into the cab of the truck. And there's this, like, young guy
in there. He's like, oh, and he's like, what you got in the back?
M60? Okay, bye. Get out. He's like, open the door,
get out. He was— I, I had forgotten,
like, the exact sequence of this movie, and I started writing down earlier,
like, what are the found items that Rambo gets to use, right? So I
thought it'd be a fun little inventory list, but it starts with, like, okay,
a piece of wire and a tarp that he cuts into, like, making a shirt.
Yep. A rock. Yeah. Galt's jacket. Yeah.
Galt's rifle. Uh, just mystery flammable liquid in
the mine that he used to light those torches. Yeah, whatever that was. Uh,
and then a truck with a machine gun in the back of it. The M60
with a shit ton of ammo. That's the key thing that he found. I think
without finding that, a lot of this doesn't happen. Oh, the radio. Galt's radio too.
That's right. Very important. That's how he gets found. But yeah. But again, now we
have another, now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho moment. So,
uh, so Rambo gets the truck and he ends up, uh, He's getting
away and being chased by the cop cars. And it's instantly night.
It's really weird. It's sort of dusk-ish when he jumps on the truck, and the
very next moment we see him, it is pitch black. Yeah. Which is an interesting
transition. But yeah, it's nighttime suddenly. And,
you know, he drives to like a gas station. It looks like it's maybe got
like a used car lot with it too. There's a lot of cars there.
And he basically just like parks the truck. And I don't know, how did the
gasoline get all over the ground? Oh, so he plows the— First,
as he's being pursued by these cops, he does this good move where he makes
them crash. Like, they're up behind him and he's able to sideswipe them, and they
hit this parked car on the side of the road, and it immediately explodes as
if it was like a BMW C4 or some kind of car that's like the
first car to be made only of explosives. Like, it's crazy, right? Chevy plastic.
So, uh, so he takes the truck with the M60
in it and he just plows over all the pumps. Oh, that's what it was.
And then that just makes gas like spray up in the air. So he's got
this gas geysering up in the air. Right. And then of course gets out with
the machine gun, blows up the gas station. Yep. And so everything is— it's on
fire and exploding, and the cars are exploding. He's making this enormous ruckus.
And now Teasle, you know, first of all, they got a call back, uh,
you know, the, the soldier that was thrown out of the truck did call in
that like Rambo's alive, he stole a truck, like all this stuff. So that would—
they know they're chasing him. So now Teasle sees, you know, he can kind of
see the explosion. It seems like maybe several blocks away from the police station from
where he is, but he can see it. It's like, you know, get out there,
whatever. And So Rambo is now running around town with this M60
in the belt-loaded— you know, it's a belt-loaded M60. He's got a lot of ammo.
He's shooting all of the, like, transformers on the energy,
the electricity poles, basically. So he's knocking out huge blocks of electricity
as he goes. Yep. Teasle, meanwhile, has, I think,
gone up to the roof of the police station to try to find where Rambo
is. Yeah. To try to snipe him. And he's also gotten on kind of like
the loudspeaker and announced like evacuate the streets,
like everyone off the streets and stuff. And this is where I find it— this
is the point in the movie where I found it very much, much harder to
sympathize with John Rambo. It's like he really is terrorizing this whole town.
Like, it'd be terrifying if you were just a person in this town to know
that there is some crazy person running around with an M60 or with a gun,
whatever, and is like knocking out power and is a threat to— it's like,
regardless of what, you know, the cops did to him, which were horrible things,
like, he's now at the point where he's not really a sympathetic hero. Totally.
It flipped. Like, it flipped to the point where now he's doing worse things than
like what was being done. There's no good guys except maybe Colonel Trautman
is sort of the guy to root for at this point because he can maybe
defuse things. Yeah, but he's also the one ultimately responsible for Rambo being exactly who
he is. Right, right, right. Yeah, uh, although he's not
being used according to the instructions, so that's not on Trautman, right? No,
must be user error. Um, so, so the word gets back,
you know, officially that there's no body found. They've kind of pulled
everything, uh, out of the mine, and Teasle's like, all right,
dude, I'm going for it, right? And before he got up on
the roof, there was some good, like, Clark Griswold attic steps that got up to
the roof. I like that instead of just the metal ladder. It was such a
funny entrance. He's just watching old films wearing, like,
lady gloves. Right. Trying to stay warm. Little, like, head towel.
And the best thing is that Rambo, of course,
every town you're able to get access to a gun store. Oh, yeah. And then
they've got the guns that are on display. But then there's always the kind of
secret stuff that's behind the fake wall or whatever. So,
and he basically— in my life, I want to do this. so bad is make
a trail of gunpowder and light the end of it and watch it. Like,
I would love that, dude. I really— anyone with like gunpowder, uh, hit me
up, mail it to me. Uh, don't do that. It's a bad idea. Don't do
that. Don't, don't empower this man's weird fantasies. Uh, but he,
he basically blows up the whole gun store and there's, you know,
all the bullets are going off. So crazy distraction, plus destroying a
lot of the excess armory if the citizens decide to come after him or whatever,
right? It was mostly— he was probably more about the distraction,
I think. Yeah, like he wants Teasle looking that way. I mean, that seems to
be what he's doing, right? By knocking out power in certain areas, he's giving himself
cover, but he's also like giving Teasle— are you trying to direct Teasle's attention?
Yes. From one place to another. And that's, and that's what he's doing. And it
works because he kind of hides in a corner after blowing up the ammunition,
the gun store, and Teasle peeks up over, you know, the, the roof of the
police station to look, and, and Rambo spots him. And now he knows for sure,
okay, he's on the roof of the police station. That's where he he's at.
So Rambo goes into the police station and there's this tense sort of moment where
Teasle is like looking down through a skylight down into the station
as Rambo's kind of coming in. Who's gonna see who first, whatever. You know,
somebody, you know, like Rambo runs and Teasle shoots at him through the
glass, doesn't hit him. But you know, Rambo's got this crazy M60, he just shoots
through the ceiling. Yeah. And I guess shoots Teasle in the foot or leg or
something, right? Like, um, yeah, it gets him all the way through the ceiling.
Uh, his shooting spree is, uh, very nice here. At one point they shoot
one of those like water cooler, uh, things, but it was back when they were
all glass, which is a great thing to see get That was really nice.
Yeah, so he's get— he's got Teasle, you know,
he's in the police station. Yep. And, and Teasle falls down like through the
sky. Right, through the skylight. So Rambo shoots the ceiling, basically forces Teasle to fall
through the skylight, right? And Rambo's there like ready to kind of finish him off,
and Teasle's like, you know, just kind of like, go ahead, like, do it,
do it, do it. And then Colonel Trautman comes in.
Mm-hmm. And he's able to talk to him. He's like, Hey, John,
you're surrounded. You know, yeah, it's over. And John's nothing
is over. And we get this like really—it's
well done. It's like the character is very unhinged at this point,
and this speech that like in parts makes a lot of sense, and in parts
you're like, oh dude, you're looking at this wrong. Whatever. But pretty powerful.
You know the way that he's talking about the difference between in the military,
and I think a lot of people have this experience. I had like a
purpose. I had status. Like, I was put in charge of important
things. I was put in charge of expensive equipment. Here I can't even hold a
job parking cars. Yeah, this world is not built for me. Like, I need to
be in that world, otherwise nothing fucking makes sense. Yeah, it's a heartbreaking speech.
It's well acted by Stallone. You know, he— like, we make fun of him a
lot, and a lot of times he is kind of a make-fun-able actor,
but there are moments where he really is is able to put a lot
of emotion on screen, and, and this is one of those scenes. Um, and it
really reminded me of like, uh, you know, you've seen Shawshank Redemption and they talk
about guys' life, or, you know, guys who are in there for almost life,
Brooks, right? And they get out and they just don't know what the fuck to
do with their lives because there was structure and order and things made sense,
you know, where they were, whether that's prison or the military or whatever kind of,
you know, structured organization that you remember that kind of does— when you're in it,
it controls everything about your life. You're required to fully buy into that structure and
order in both situations. Yeah, it is what it is. And so then you lose
and you join the ranks of the free, essentially, one way or another.
And yeah, it's like nothing is sort of like— nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing is
in the place you expect it to be. And it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
And it is, you know, it is retroactively sympathizing
for the character. Like, we understand now this has been essentially like a PTSD-induced
psychotic break for most of the movie. 100%. And especially the very end,
like when he's talking about, you know, Like, all my friends are dead.
And he goes into this story about how, you know,
I left my friends for a minute and this kid came up with a shoeshine
box to my other friends, but the shoeshine box was wired with a bomb and
there were pieces of them all over me and I was holding and just like,
I honestly like Stallone really going for it. Yeah. And the whole, the whole thing
though, the visual of he was begging me, he wants to go home, I want
to go home. And I said, okay, I'll take you home. I just got to
find your legs. I can't find your legs. And it's like, Oh my God,
it's absolutely heartbreaking. So because like, no, I mean realistically, like no human
is meant to ever experience that kind of— no, no, no, no, that's not something—
our brains are not set up to handle that kind of terror. Yeah. Uh,
and, and whatever. So yeah, so there's that. But this is sort of the end.
Yeah. Uh, for Rambo in a lot of sense, you know, basically Trautman convinces,
uh, Teasle to let him arrest Rambo. He's walked out of the police station
in cuffs, and, and that's really how the movie ends, as, as the, the Theme
starts playing, as you said, with lyrics. Yeah, but we just get that shot of
Rambo walking down the walking down the street. Yeah, and you know he spared Teasle's
life, but he fucked up the entire town and took out some people. But yeah,
so that's the end of it, and that is first
blood, man. That's the whole deal. Well, this was my choice, so I guess I'll
go ahead in with my review. A couple things about
this movie that are kind of interesting. So originally, and I wonder,
you mentioned earlier like there are these 2 writers, these 2 main writers,
and then Stallone was an additional writer. Correct. One of the changes
that I've read was made from the original story is that
Colonel Trautman was supposed to kill Rambo at the end of it. Oh, interesting.
You know, so it is just like the creator like, like taking out his creation
because of the damage that it's caused. And that would have made a lot of
sense. And there was that conversation about, do you wrap your arms around him or
put a bullet through his head? Yeah, and that was kind of the original
plan. And I don't know if it was Stallone who decided like this IP
is too good for him to get killed, or or just like I don't want
that to go that way for this veteran or for this person. You know,
I think it's more that Stallone doesn't get doesn't die in his movies. I mean,
Stallone doesn't die in his movies. What movies he ever died in? At least at
that point in his career. And like, and then like, you know, maybe maybe into
the 2000s as he got older, did he allow that? I think like one of
the Rocky movies he or in Creed or something, he finally does die or something
like that. But like for the most part, Stallone does not get killed. It's like
Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger doesn't get killed. Stallone thing. Yeah, that makes
sense. Um, so, uh, there were kind of a couple
guys, a couple real-life guys that, uh, and there's probably
hundreds that claim this, that are the supposed inspiration for
John Rambo. Um, 2 different ones. And watching this movie and watching
the other 2, it's almost like one of the guys is First Blood Rambo.
Okay. And one of the guys is the second 2 movies, uh, Rambo. Yeah.
So the first guy, and like the main guy that kind Comes up when you
look it up is this guy named Roy Benavides,
who was a veteran, like a special forces
guy. He was injured by a landmine in 1965,
was like not walking, was discharged from the military and everything, told he wouldn't
walk again, managed to get himself walking again,
managed to recover, and like demanded to be put back in
the action. So he was like holy shit back in Vietnam in like 1968 and
had all these missions and all this like heroism, like won a bunch of.
Awards and stuff. So that's very much like Rambo's ability to ignore
pain and all that kind of stuff. Sure. There's this other guy named Bo Gritz,
um, and Bo Gritz's story was that he was a Special Forces
guy, a very decorated guy. Um, he actually
trained, uh, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, which is
very Rambo 3. Um, but one of the things I read about him
is that he was kind of involved in
the nomination process in several of the medals that he
received, and a lot of the medals he received were kind of— were for the
same thing. So there could have been, like, one act that got him, like,
a Purple Heart and a Congressional Medal of Honor or whatever. Okay. So he juiced
his— juiced his numbers a little bit. Um, but he got really into the POW/MIA
stuff after retirement and actually went on these, like,
privately funded missions in the '80s and '70s to try
to, like, do reconnaissance or bring back POWs from Vietnam. And this
was funded by private cit— like, uh, Clint Eastwood, Ross Perot
were mentioned as people who were, like, into this and were, like, funding his work.
So I just thought that was interesting of, like, talk about the kind of Couple
of real-life Rambos there. So this
movie, I mean, this is right up my alley.
I had a big-ass smile on my face. Like, as far as there's a lot
of comedies like that don't work for me. Yeah,
because movies like this to me are the true funny movies.
Like the stuff that Rambo's doing, I can't help but just be like giggling.
And you know, obviously there's weight to this film and the
story and the background and everything. Everything, but I just get such a delight watching
him get his little revenge and like the things that he sets up and stuff.
I had so much fun throughout this movie. I thought it looked good. I thought
the performances were good. Um, nothing distracting as far as like budget
limitations that hurt the effects. Uh, I love
the theme song without lyrics. Um, and,
uh, wait a second, is this a zero-woman
movie? I guess other than the woman he talks to at the beginning. It's kind
of like an all-man movie. I mean, pretty much. Barry's— Barry's widow,
Delmar Barry's widow, is, is in it, and there's maybe one other woman in town.
There's a waitress, uh, that talks to Trautman and, and Teasle, but that's
about it. So definitely does not pass the Bechdel test, you know, 2 women speak
to each other, whatever. Certainly does not. Um, but I had a ton of
fun with this, and there's a reason why they made sequels off
this character, right? And it's funny how cartoony he
became, because even in this movie he becomes pretty fucking cartoony. Yeah. And it
just keeps going and going and going. I love First Blood. I think it's,
uh, I think it's a delight. It makes me smile a lot. I'm a 4
out of 4 and a half out of 5 for First Blood. Very nice.
Yeah. For my part, like, not quite
as ebullient as you are on it. I do think it was, it was a
good watch. You know, the character, like I said, I struggled with sympathy for the
main character at times. times. Um, I found the villains to
be a little cartoonish. And again, this is like not really
maybe fully understanding, uh, uh, the placement within media
at the time of like how we treat vagrants and Vietnam vets. I mean,
just, it seemed like the cops were so over the top. Awful.
Yeah. You know, and it's like, all right, like I get it, you know,
but also just, it kind of pulled me out a little bit. Um, and then
it was like there's something structural that I, that I didn't love about the movie.
The way that like Rambo, because he's
He's this one-man army alone in the woods for so much of it, like doesn't
say much of anything ever. And most of the conversation that occurs in the movie
is between like Troutman and Teasle, and a lot of it's just talking about Rambo
and telling us things he's done or like kind of who he is. All right,
so, but you know, the action sequences are really good. That chase, that dirt bike
cop car chase is really well done. Yeah, you know, a lot of the stuff
near the end is good. You know, I guess that by the end I'm a
little bit like, bro, like could you not just terrorize this town? The town didn't
do anything to you. Like, right, go get the cops, fine, but like Jesus.
Um, and I just think that in general, you know, it's a very short movie,
and I think the issue I have with action movies that are really short is
like I need to give a little bit more of a shit about what's going
on other than just the survival. Like, I don't know, like there's an element there.
I still really enjoyed it. I still think it's— it was a good movie.
I would recommend it to anybody who likes '80s action movies. If you haven't seen
First Blood, you absolutely should. Um, I am a 3.5 out of 5 on First
Blood. I still definitely enjoyed it, just not quite like a glowing review maybe,
but yeah. Yeah, that's fair. That gets us 8 out of 10, uh, altogether on
First Blood. So yeah, that's, uh, that's where we landed as a
duo. Excellent. Oh, one, one other thing about this movie is I don't think
they say the phrase— and I don't know when this like entered popular culture— but
they don't say PTSD anywhere. They don't talk about— I
didn't hear flashback. No, I mean, so a lot of these things
that would have made it so much easier for Trautman to explain Rambo,
right, to the cops. I don't know if they weren't in the vernacular or they
just chose to not talk about it. No, I think that was pre— really any
kind of understanding, you know, of exactly what, what that kind of effect,
you know, what that has an effect on people. So, oh man, yeah, he was
just before his time in that sense. Well, shoot, we're, uh, we're on
to, uh, your choice now, Steve, and we're in a free-for-all,
so we can go wherever we want with this. And we're gonna do— we're gonna
definitely do a little tonal whiplash here. We're not, we're not going down this road
Uh, any further as far as, uh, the one-man army or anything like that.
Uh, in fact, we're going to a very ensemble, um, type piece from a writer-director
team that we've seen once before. I know for sure, I think just once so
far, but a huge, huge, uh, pair of filmmakers, uh, for the '80s and '90s.
Uh, the, the cast of this film is just outstanding with a lot of
people that we've seen before, uh, and then several new folks. But some of our
favorites are in this movie, including Sam Elliott, who we've talked about about in this
episode is a guy that sounded like him. But Sam Elliott's in this.
John Goodman is somebody you and I both love. Uh, uh, Philip Seymour Hoffman is
in this. Uh, and of course stars Jeff Bridges. Uh, Steve Buscemi we've
seen before. We're gonna see The Big Lebowski from the Coen Brothers. Oh, the people
have spoken. This is gonna be a big one. I like it. Such a hit
movie for people our age. I feel like it is just— it hit at just
the right time. I think it was '96 it came out, right in high school.
It's just— there's so many things that work Oh yeah.
And it's gonna be a lot of fun to watch. Um, I don't know if,
uh, if you've seen it recently or not, but— No, it's been a while.
It's probably been 10+ years for me. All right, that's good stuff. Oh,
I'm excited, man. That's a good choice. So next week, The Big Lebowski will be
what we bring to you. And that's a wrap. So if you like what you
hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review.
It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at
twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore
the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak
previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been First Blood,
another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nic.
Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week. Thanks,