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Post by doddgerhardt on Oct 3, 2019 0:10:57 GMT
Despite the reputation of the sequels, the first one is pretty damn good. While the sequels felt like wish fulfillment fantasies, the first one makes some fairly uncommercial decisions.....despite the fact that it was indeed a commercial success. It’s tight. It’s refreshingly simple as far as plot. The action scenes are gripping. It moves along at a good clip. Thematically it has a little more meat on it’s bones than the average action film while never coming off preachy. Stallone gives a great internalized performance until he finally explodes at the end. Brian Dennehy makes for a great bad guy, but he never comes off as some mustache twirling villain and Richard Crenna is clearly having fun. Anyway your thoughts?
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urbanpatrician
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"I just wanna go back, back to 1999. back to hit me baby one more time" - Charli XCX
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Post by urbanpatrician on Oct 3, 2019 0:46:39 GMT
My dad always watched the 2nd one, so I more vividly remember those scenes as a kid. (including that Vietnamese woman dying)
And I have to say, I probably prefer the 2nd one and always feel that Rambo as a gung-ho in the jungle is truest to the whole nature of the franchise. Though First Blood is quite good - 1982 is a weak year for me so I might rank that higher than general.
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 3, 2019 2:11:43 GMT
Love it, 8.5/10. Completely works as an action movie, and as an account of PTSD with Rambo's simultaneous battle, externally the whole predicament which keys into the contradiction of American patriotism, rash authority, social outcasts, and how that blows out his extremely trained instinct, and his mental fits and those violent flashes, and some guilt too - "I didn't do anything!" he says desperately. One of Sly's best, Dennehy's very good too - and directed with precise tension by the unsung Ted Kotcheff.
One little thing that annoyed me on my latest rewatch was the Colonel's constant snide remarks.
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Post by ibbi on Oct 6, 2019 17:51:34 GMT
Tremendous movie for all of the reasons that you state. It's a movie that (just like the original Rocky) has become lost in the shuffle, a sombre and pretty stripped down movie that is part of a genre not generally taken seriously, but goes about its business in unique, interesting and meaningful ways that make it stand out from the pack, and yet has over time come to be defined by the succession of stupid sequels that followed. It gets grouped in with all of the lone hero action man movies that were so prevalent in American cinema in the 80s, but it's really got far more in common with the more pessimistic outlook of the previous decade.
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Post by getclutch on Nov 6, 2019 18:46:06 GMT
Yeah this film never gets old for me. Just felt very realistic & gritty to me. The supporting cast with Crenna/Dennehy always tends to get better on re-watch. Heck, even Jack Starrett was very convincing with his short screen-time. Overall, just a very simple plot that works perfectly. Love the soundtrack too. I am more surprised that Ted Kotcheff went quiet after this. He deserved better work/projects.
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