Alternately titled Rambo IV: To Hell and Back, Rambo is a cinematic demonstration of unremitting bloodshed. Much like the other three films in the series, Rambo does not hold a mercy rule. With its unapologetically hostile lead and plethora of murdered extras, Rambo is an incessantly violent capstone to what is now a ruthless quadrilogy.
Now a secluded snake capturer, Vietnam veteran John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is asked to deliver a group of Christian human rights missionaries – led by Michael Burnett (Paul Schulze) and Sarah Miller (Julie Benz) – from his current home in Thailand to the persecuted people of Burma.
Knowing that Burma is a war zone under the vicious wrath of an unruly and corrupt army, Rambo initially refuses to assist the anxious Americans. However, after some minor convincing, Rambo agrees to guide the missionaries on their quest to aid the needy.
When the good guys (and gal) are inevitably captured by the bad guys, Rambo joins a set of mercenaries to vie with the Burmese army and rescue the innocent. The result is a relentless bloodbath.
Honoring the no-holds-barred attitude of its predecessors, Rambo chooses not to shield its audience from the gruesomeness of combat. Throughout the film, intestines are spilled, limbs are blown off, heads are staked, and bodies are converted to pink mist via land mines. As shocking as it may sound, the killings in Rambo could be equated to the Holocaust; innocent civilians are shot, burned, hanged, and raped without remorse. On the whole, Rambo is more genocide than thrill ride.
After all, Rambo’s brutal violence is what makes it a suitable fourth chapter to the First Blood series. The Rambo motion pictures are all about pure unadulterated action fit for men who feed on carnage. When Rambo states, “I don’t kill for my country; I kill for myself,” the feature takes on a homicidal tone. Yet, when Rambo possesses long stares that scream “I told you so,” after the battle royale, the audience both comprehends and appreciates his butchery.
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Article comments
1 - Moriarte
Alternate Title: Rambo-4 arms
Ram-Bore
This film had such a weak story line it could only be strung out for an hour and a quarter. It basically concerns a group of christian missionaries being held hostage in Burma, and Rambo, along with a group of mercenaries, being contracted by a Pastor to free them.
Rambo 4 is in stark contrast to the other Rambos where he muscle posed his way to self glory. In this film, however, he must have been too self conscious of his love handles and sausage veins that the central focus of Rambo, and his character as a whole for that matter, was his forearms.
The Burmese soldiers were portrayed as verminous killing scum who feed live people to pigs, and Sly even makes further propaganda swipes at Burmese generals by portraying the one in this movie as a raper of young boys.
The killing is so gratuitous and lustful, you wonder what kind of sick, sado-masterbatory audience could enjoy this snuff movie. Rambo manages to effortlessly kill everybody in every imaginable way, and would have encountered more resistance had the Burmese army been replaced by a bunch of grannies armed with knitting needles and balls of wool. And where the hell he manages to find , in the middle of the jungle, some kind of huge, thermo-nuclear device to detonate at short notice is any one's guess.
This abomination of a movie further insult by trying to add believability to this sado-wet dream, by allowing Rambo to get a slight nick from a bullet to his shoulder in the last minutes of the film, as he's mopping up the final remaining Burmese 'skittle' soldiers.
It was a pity Rambo's Kernel is no longer alive as he was the real star of the Rambo franchise and provided the only hint of class and proper acting.
Anyone claiming this was just a bit of fun should watch again the actual footage of the suffering of the Burmese people shown at the beginning of this film, appreciate how Sly has tried to glorify himself at their expense, and then should proceed straight to the doctors and have their brains checked out for advanced syphilis.