Rambo (2008): Good Film Reveals Awful Truths

Rambo is back! After nearly 20 years, we find John Rambo living in Thailand, eking out a living operating a river boat and selling scrap metal. He also catches poisonous snakes to sell. He's been laying low all this time, doing his best to avoid any trouble. But as always, trouble has found him. This trouble comes in the form of a group of missionaries looking to ferry medical supplies and aid up river to a local Karen tribe.

John Rambo knows the area around the Thailand/Burma border has been a hot zone for nearly 60 years and he wants no part of it, but he agrees to think it over. He eventually agrees to bring the missionaries and their cargo up the river. Along the way, the boat and crew are accosted by a group of river pirates. At first Rambo is content to let things be, but when the pirates decide they want to take Sarah Miller (played by Julie Benz), one of the missionaries, he takes exception and kills them all in very short order.

After the initial shock and horror, the group continues up the river and eventually meets up with members of the Karen tribe, who will help tote the cargo to their village. This is when Rambo takes his leave in order to clean up the bodies of the pirates he left behind. Two weeks later, Rambo is visited yet again. This time the visitor is Arthur Marsh, a pastor who has lost contact with the original group of missionaries. Marsh tells Rambo that the missionaries have been attacked and butchered by the Burmese army. The survivors, he continues, have been taken captive. Pastor Marsh has sold almost everything he owns, mortgaged his home and pretty much anything else he could to scrape enough money together to hire mercenaries to rescue his friends.

John Rambo is visibly torn between his desire for peace and his moral compass. He agrees to lead a group of five mercenaries in an attempt to save the captured aid workers. This is when things turn into a real old-fashioned blood bath as the six men encounter the man behind the attacks, Burmese army major Pa Tee Tint. I'm not going to lay out any spoilers concerning who lives and who dies, but I will say that Rambo fans will not be disappointed at all.

Sylvester Stallone directed, produced, starred in and wrote this film. It has his fingerprints all over it and he should be proud. This is one of the best movies he's made. It's well-written and all the actors turn in good performances. Audiences will see a Rambo reminiscent of the old days, but a little more worn around the edges. We see a man who has finally come to terms with his past. He's no longer a man tormented by his past; he's just a man who's really good at killing people.

Viewers will see some really gruesome scenes of tortured, mutilated Karen tribesmen at the beginning of this film. What truly makes this footage horrible is the fact that is wasn't staged. The audience is looking at real people that were slaughtered by the Burmese. This film isn't simply about an action hero going around killing bad guys. It's a vehicle for a message. That message is that for the last 60 years, the Burmese government has been systematically butchering indigenous Karen tribesmen. These atrocities are some of the worst acts committed in human history, but also the least known. This is a really good movie, but even it weren't, I would still recommend it, just so people could be exposed to an awful truth.