Since this might not be immediately clear to the average consumer, First Blood is the first movie in the Rambo franchise. The Rambo series has one of the worst naming systems I’ve ever seen for a movie series, so I feel the need to get this out of the way. Many people may have heard of Rambo as Sylvester Stallone’s second most popular role, in the same vein as Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford’s second most popular role. While Stallone is mainly known for the Rocky movies, the Rambo franchise deserves some attention to. If nothing else, First Blood is an amazing 80s action movie that should be checked out.

This movie is really different from your traditional action movie, as it relies mostly on its plot, characters, and themes, with the action serving to elevate these things, not the other way around. We follow the story of John Rambo, who is a Vietnam war veteran that’s returned home. Rambo finds that all of the men he’s served with are now dead, and he’s having difficulty adjusting to being back home. He’s become a bit of a drifter, which lands him in trouble when he ends up in the wrong town. A cop notices him and doesn’t like what he is or how he looks, and that’s enough for him to discriminate against Rambo. He ends up arresting Rambo for no good reason, and from here tensions begin to escalate when Rambo refuses to comply with the cops’ demand at the police station, since he knows he did nothing wrong. Rambo is eventually provoked into attacking the cops, and makes a break for it. This leads to a war at home when the police gather all of their forces to go after Rambo.

I think the premise works well enough in its simplicity, but more than that I think the movie works so well in the story that it’s trying to tell. Unlike the Rambo sequels where the focus is basically on just seeing how high of a body count they can rack up, First Blood really keeps itself grounded, and winds up dealing with some dark themes in the process. Soldiers having PTSD and having trouble adjusting to life back home certainly isn’t an original concept, but it’s handled with a lot of delicacy here, and so it’s really compelling. What sets First Blood apart for me is actually all of the anti-patriotism stuff in the movie. Rambo ends up facing a lot of discrimination for being a soldier in the Vietnam war, which is something that people nowadays might forget was actually a big problem back then. In fact, the whole catalyst for the main conflict of the movie is that some cops don’t like Rambo simply because he participated in the war. He ends up facing insults like “baby-killer” throughout the movie, and this is something you don’t see in too any action movies. It’s also interesting that the “bad guys” in this movie are the cops, something else that I found to be a pretty ballsy move for the movie to portray. Many people don’t take painting police in a bad light very fondly, so it was an interesting move to have them be the antagonists in this movie.

I also do need to applaud the action here though. Like I said before, the Rambo sequels wind up focusing on higher kill counts, but in First Blood Rambo actually only winds up killing one person directly (at least that we know of for sure). It’s tough to pull this kind of thing off when the movie literally has 200 men going after one guy, but that’s what happens. Most of the movie takes place in a small forest area, so most of the action involves Rambo evading the men, hiding in areas, laying traps, and sneaking up on people. It’s more tense and calculated than it is brutal and bloody, but it works for the movie. The action is always exciting, and always entertaining.

I honestly love First Blood. It’s the kind of action movie in the same vein as something like the first Predator, where it’s one person against a group (although in this movie the roles are reversed) in a forest. It has a simple premise, yet delves into complex themes among its exciting action. Also, Rambo gives a very memorable monologue at the end of the movie, and I consider it to be Stallone’s best acting. If you like 80s action movies, this one is definitely a must-see.

4.5/5