Upstream - S2E26: Rambo: First Blood

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Kill... John.... Brambo... ------ Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ *WEB DESIGN ALERT*  Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/   Kill James Bond is hosted by Alice Caldwell-Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com and https://twitter.com/killjamesbond

I can turn you to law, like you are to me. So before you take the new, do you write on your body and lip line? Are we on? Okay. Ooh. It's a pro move. Sorry, you're in Defcon one. Hello and welcome to another episode. Are you riding real fast? Or is-

Oh, you can just flip in the phone now, so I so. I mean, I was just- I was just did lipstick, but then I mean, whatever I am, Alice Corkhawi, I'm joined, as always, by my friends Abigail Thorne and Defcon. Hey. How you doing? It's the summertime, baby. How you doing? I mean, I was very relaxed on my- It's hot. It's hot. It's the evening time we. How you doing? I mean, I was very relaxed on my hot.

It's hot. It's the evening time we're recording in the evening, sort of the afternoon for once. We're all having some thoughts. We're all in a mood. But that's fine, because we're here to talk about a movie, which is not horny. A movie called Technically, It's Not Rambo.

First Blood, It's Just First Blood. You don't have to say Rambo. It's not called It's Not Rambo First Blood, it's just first blood you don't have to say Rambo, it's not called Rambo until Rambo Part Three. So, yeah, it's a shit to say. It's Rambo the first time and mom every time after that. Yes, yeah, and this is going to be our new series because they made five of these fucking things and we're going to watch every single one of them. Yeah, well, kill John Rambo. I mean, I'm intrigued to see how they follow up this movie. Oh!

I guess they can do pre-puls. I don't really want to see that, but like, yeah. So here's the thing, and this will become apparent over the course of discussing the movie First Blood, which is that I recently watched First Blood and found out that what I thought Rambo was, was simply inaccurate with regards to the first movie.

Yeah. Just, I had a... You thought he was like in the army or something? No, no, no. He's just a guy. Yeah. And spoilers, but like, this film was fucking sick and I absolutely loved it. It was so good.

It was so legit good. I am sparking up the big Phil Greaves mass culture under imperialism as fascists sign to say this is a fascist movie. Yeah, of course it is. Both of you are fascists. Oh, I'm going to discuss the way this is fascist. It's not just fascist, but it is. It is.

Okay, good. Yeah. We're on the same pace. This is all culture created under capitalism. It is inherently problematic and there's the including this. Harry Potter, fashion. Podcast itself.

We have very strong, very strong. I mean, yeah, I mean, I do think it's got interesting things to say about masculinity, which is our reman. That's right. That's diving. OK, so we start with a classic of the genre,

Drifter comes into town, right? This is where a lot of the shit originates, is big dude, Silvestre Stallone. We don't know his name, we don't know anything about him yet. Wearing the classic Drifter fit of the Vietnam era, like Olive Drab, M65 Field Jacket, and Blue Jeans, Classic fit, and he comes to a town, we don't know where it is,

looking for a guy he was in the army with in the Vietnam. Yeah well actually we opened this with this beautiful shot of a cabin on the lake and yeah. So the vestus alone John Rambo steps into frame and he sees it and he smiles and this is actually quite a nice moment and I was just like oh is he coming home from the war is that what's happening and he he approached the people living in the cabin and he's looking for this guy Barry, who gave him the address.

And he says, oh, he's in all service body of mine from Vietnam, like we served, and he gave him the address. And I got, you know, I got home, I came to visit him, you know? And the lady there tells him Barry's dead. He died of cancer. Yeah, he got killed by Agent Orange. He was spraying this shit in Vietnam. You didn't even know it was killing you.

And he died horribly. Yeah, really horribly. And they really like market too, because like John, when he's talking about this guy, he's like, oh, he was huge. We put him at the back of the group photo because he was so massive. And nevertheless, is like, by the end,

I could pick him up myself. Like, it's madness. Yeah, it's a Sylvester Stallone talking and like, by the end, I could pick about myself. Like, yeah, it's madness. This is so Vestus to lone talking and like, sort of 83 Vestus to lone. Where he's like, you know, over six feet and like built like a vending machine, sort of, sort of, so crazy. How like, oh, this, this dude was big. Yeah. This guy was like big according to me. It's crazy how eloquent Sylvester Stallone is as well in this. Right. We know what Sylvester Stall the sounds like contemporaneously, like now.

Yeah, for sure. He can form words at this point. He mostly doesn't have to and this is something that interests me about the acting here. He reminds me a bit of George Laisenby where it's lots of like physical presence, lots of walking. And most of what he has to do for the first four fifths of this movie is sort of stand there and look betrayed.

And he does a great look of betrayal. He really does. I think I disagree with you there, out of sin so far as George Lason be in the films that we saw him, the James Bond films, it was kind of the stopped clock, tells the right time twice, and then he happened to be perfect for some aspects of Bond.

I think it's the best of us. That's perfect about this. The performance in this is legit great. I think he's like, makes some really fucking powerful choices and that he's like a great actor in this. And people forget that he, yeah, for real. And people forget that he like, he wrote and starred in Rocky as well.

Like he's a legit fucking great actor. He's very esoteric and he's got his own way of doing it, but I think his performance in this is fucking stunning. Rocky is what got him this. He got to sort of like write his own ticket basically and the answer was to like adapt to this novel first blood and he adapted it quite heavily or like had them adapt to quite heavily to make it what it became, but we'll get into that in the meantime. Our drifter. By the way, I hope this says that you enjoyed the fact

that a woman spoke in this scene. That's the only time in the film it happens. And I think, again, I think that's actually good. I think the film is better because of that. I think that too. I think that's the only non-white people in the movie to like family. And we get into that a little bit

in that they are frightened of John Rambo, which is a white dude showing up in the big jacket. I kind of like that. Doesn't really linger on it, but it's a nice little detail. Anyway, our boy, he gives them the photo of their dead husband, father, and leaves, and experiences the ultimate American form of destitution, not having a car and having to walk by the side of the road. This is the ultimate humiliation.

That is true. And in that culture, this is the worst thing you can do to a person. They do so much to sell the walking, right? Because like, there are so many of these like really long shots that are just John Rambo starting at a point and just walking towards or away from the camera for like longer than you would hold a shot these days. It's not even like he's just walking away seen. Yeah. This kind of mixed use of walkable urbanism currently illegal to build many records. So he goes to this small town in Washington called Hope, a Washington state, I should say

the Pacific Northwest. And as soon as he walks in, we've seen the sheriff who is like on the way out of his office, Sheriff Teasel. He's this kind of like glad-handing like good old boy. Everybody knows him. He like kind of like backslaps and everything and he sees John Rambo and we get possibly the funniest Characterization I've ever seen in my life because he sees him in his like field jacket to which he has sewn a big

American flag and he says you know wearing a flag and a jacket looking the way you do You're asking for trouble around here friend. I love You know, wearing a flag on a jacket, looking the way you do. You're asking for trouble around here, friend. I love Cop who hates the American flag. I fucking love that shit because that's the kind of imagination you can only get from like a really right-wing movie. It's like, listen here, this isn't Islamic jihad town, buddy. Hey, well, gay in this town, friend, the only flag we want is the pride flag.

You walk in here with an American flag, and that triggers and owns the shit out of me. Yeah. But so what happens is he like menaces him. He like threatens, he like moves him through town as a cop would a drifter or a hobo, right? Well, he like, under the sort of pretense of niceness, he like offers him a ride to the other side of town with the sort of like implication of leave town. Yeah. He says, we don't want guys like you drifters, homeless people, like, says, this is

a nice town. It's quiet quiet you find it boring anyway. And Rambo is like so again this like mask of betrayal he's like personally aggrieved because he like he just wanted somewhere to like get something to eat and the cop is moving him on. So as soon as the cop leaves him at this like city limit sort of it just turns right back around and starts walking where the cop can see him. Yeah this is this is nice this is John making a choice right he pushes it a little yes he kind of wants to see because this whole car trip this walking where the cop can see him. Yeah. This is nice of you. This is John making a choice, right? He pushes it a little. Yes. He kind of wants to see, because this whole car trip,

this fucking cop is just like giving him the what for. It's like, oh, get the fuck out of here. And he made kind of like faux affable bullshit. Yeah, I'm doing you a favor. Real folksy shit. And John's just at the whole time. Again, wounded puppy eyes just being like why you pushing me man Like I didn't do anything

And so I told you cuz I hate America and I hate the American flag I remember from my AS level history that some Vietnam veterans were treated quite poorly when they came back from the war So I might as well get into it. Okay. That is certainly the mythology that this movie comes from. Yes, it is. I don't know. I was going to ask that how accurate, presumably not this accurate. I got the feeling they were kind of, you know, upping a bit for the drama, but I'm interested in other real history. We'll get to that later, listeners. We will. I think this is something for like the sort of like emotional end of the movie

is where I want to talk about so like the Vietnam mythology. So the sheriff goes back and arrests Rambo and we get this tense moment where he's like, put your hands on the car and the sheriff draws his gun and Rambo does comply, puts his hands on the car, the sheriff pats him down and finds that he has a big fuck off knife on him. And we get this life being important later. Yeah, we get as hard as fuck lying where the sheriff

says, why do you have this? And he says, hunting, he says, what are you hunt and Rambo just goes, name it. It's just like, fuck that's hard. It's cool.

It's cool. It's cool. Fuck it. So he's like, all right, you're under arrest for like, vagrancy, having the knife and like,

resisting arrest, I guess. And he takes them to the police station, which is full of every other cop who hates America. Yeah, every cop I love is the name. I love his name. He's so good. They're just all walking around just being like, hey, fuck, oh, never fucking yank.

Put him in the fucking cells, get him out of here. This makes marginally more sense when you consider that the book was set in like Kentucky, right? But like, where is this? Oh, we're watching this. This is setting like, we're watching definitely this thing. I liked.

And okay, there's some weird shit in rural Washington. Like, there's a lot of Nazis out there for one thing. But like, yeah, you think they're the idea of what exactly, right? But instead he like, he gets him processed and he hands him off to like this sergeant who is... Vacancy and having a concealed weapon, other charges. Yeah. This sergeant art galt. This sergeant is like the tutorial level mini boss man. He's such a con from second one. And you're like, I see what's gonna happen. Yes, yeah.

I've just gotten to dislike you. And he like sort of menaces him some more in that accent, which again, does not really match. Also, by the way, I should say, there is one other copo type there. And that is the like young cop who goes, oh, what if this dude turns out to be a badass chief? What is that? And that's it's Mitch. Yeah, do you recognize Mitch's

actor at all? I know who this I won't. No, go for it. Go for it. No fucking David Caruso. David Caruso. The guy from CSI Miami, the guy who puts the sunglasses on. Oh, shit. It's so good. I'm not sure if he's like a guy I'd love to see exactly, but he's definitely a guy, and he's in this movie as the kind of twink cop. Who's like, I don't know, he might turn out to be some kind of a badass. He's the cop who's like marginally trying to be nice because we see that our goal is like,

really mean to John. And they also mean to him specifically because of his soldier, they call him like soldier boy. Yeah, that's really funny. They like take his dog tags off of him. And they're like, the army, what you learn there? B and gay.

That's fucking David Carousa's like, oh no, maybe he learned to like hunt people like animals and ofuso's like, I don't know, maybe he learned to hunt people like animals. And of course, like, no, I think he learned how to fucking be gay. Yeah, and they, well, John has a flashback, a very brief flashback. Yeah, yeah, you can't. With, he has the flashback mustache. This is one of my favorite dishes.

It's so good. I want this to be the fucking episode. They flashed back to, I guess, 70s, late 60s, early 70s, Vietnam, Rambo, where he's got like a handlebar moustache and he's being, and we should say at this point, rightfully tortured by the people's army of Vietnam. Yeah. A hundred percent. And he just flashes back to that.

I thought he's got the fucking like sex magic mustaches. He does have some like a porno stuff. Great. Yeah. So at this point, because he's a hobo and he stinks, they like hose him down from which I get a line with a big hose going in the background which is very annoying to listen to but I get the line Because Mitch is like kind of disgusted by the water Speaking of the stash by the way they keep commenting on like the fact that he has long hair and is unshaven And it's quite funny because by today's standards he just looks normal because his hair is like shorter than yours

This now dev and like he's he's like hair is shorter than yours this now, Dev. And like, he's like, maybe I hasn't shaved this morning, but that's it, but this is deep, to be like, you're a happy piece of shit. Like, you're touching your collar, like he's in fucking middle school. Like the stiloneness of this kind of ruins it for me. Like, if you had looked like a hippie, hippie,

then yeah, sure, I get like cops bullying that guy, but he looks like so Vesta Stallone with slightly longer now. He's also like, he's not taller than any of them as always. He's a massive, he's so sh**. And that's spending every fucking second of it. He's been like, fuck you, your big bitch, fuck you. What did you serve our country? Cunt and just like pushing him and just flash him back

to a Vietnamese guy go like what are you serving you to drink more? I'm not bitch. Bitch. And it's like fair enough, fucking. But it is funny but they like make it really explicit that it's like the cops are escalating this. Every second of us is just the cops.

They lay it on quite thick, so thick. And I don't think, I don't think they needed to, but like every single one of those cops is like, I was a big fan of Hanoi Jane. I believe in the triumph of world communism. He's like, call me Antifa cops with their like, catty-ears and shit. People go like, like, put their progress pride flag with the triangles on it

they put me in the movie uh that's a book in Rambo and I just like take the fucking estrogen cocksucker like pushing a car yeah like that I beat him up like what do you have fucking thrown out he slashes back to a North Vietnamese guy giving a estrogen pills he's like no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, And so they try to like, I guess semi torture him by shaving him before his court appearance, but in the sort of weirdest torture decision, Art Gould is like, no, he doesn't need any shaving foam. You just like give him razor burn, like razor burn.

Yeah, and that's not so much people doing this to me and I'll make it does. It sucks. Yeah, but you know what I didn't do. You know what I didn't do and that happened to be, is I didn't kick a guy in the chest. Maybe I should have done that. Yeah, that's that shit. The best way to get out of it.

I should have gone on a roaring rampage of revenge as Rambo does when he's like, he gets the PTSD off of seeing a razor blade and like goes sick over. Well, he's triggered. He's literally a trigger. He's got the PTSD. Mitch even has his line because he's crazy.

Like, you know, Rambo is unambiguously portrayed as mentally ill. It's also nice, even the vaguely like on-side cop is still framing it as like Rambo's problem somehow. It's been like, yeah. As we act in weird to all the pushin', we should probably stop pushin' him and I go like now pushing him harder actually Put that flag on your shoulder come on. What is this the stars and

The only thing we serve around here is Kant soldier boy. Then he pans him, it's crazy. It's really unfortunate. He flattens his merch, and he pansed five feet. He put cadets on him. It's quite hard actually. Yeah, it's brutal.

But the cadets are finally too much, and he does enter rampage mode. He punches a guy out of the window, which is fucking sick of spuck. Yes, crazy. And then he grabs the knife and he runs and he does the James Bond maneuver from every Craig film where he punches someone off a motorbike and he steals it. Yeah, it's nice to sit in an old for, oh no. I was just going to carry on going until Alice comes back in, but...

Oh, I mean, I can't have Lincoln continue going with this as Alice is just dropped out so I guess her recordings off but I guess it's just three of us now just yeah I mean the king listening to this has a gun that's right it's a double dragon again yeah we're back actually the thing is the feedback was so good on our our just as episode that we've decided to fire Alice yeah mid, I mean, mid episode. Yeah, we couldn't have the heart to tell her, so we thought we'd just sort of... Flaming on the tentacle. It's like, that's crazy, she can't join anymore. We can just keep going though.

Yeah, we definitely can go. So Rambo fucking drives off on this stolen motorbike. He does a sick jump. Yeah. And the sheriff is chasing him and there's a sick jump too. And then he drives off, it's like, oh, actually, good car chase. I do enjoy this.

It's good fun. It's like this like Pacific North where so all the scenery is just beautiful. Like every wide shot is these misty mountains and like flying forests. Yeah, it's a really gorgeous part of the world. And it's like really well filmed this car chase too. And like the sheriff rolls his car.

And then I guess even the odd's Rambo falls off his bike and then doesn't get back on for no reason. Yeah, it just does scramble and I guess. Yeah. The car chase also like really well set up because it continually makes so clear as the entire opening of this movie does that like the cops are choosing every time because he keeps like he'll like go off road, he'll like leave the township, they'll keep following, he'll go off road, you'll get out, you'll get a shot of fucking what's his empty, or go in off road to follow him, doing shit that you clearly shouldn't be doing in a car just because he's like, I'm going to get this motherfucker. Yeah, he's so fucking determined.

But Rambo does eventually get away kind of. And then the backup cops arrive. So the sheriff is assembling a party, he's He's got like dogs. He's got a helicopter. They're like pursuing him up the hill and Mitch is still apprehensive. And this kind of sets up our main sort of driving quest for the whole movie, which is it's a manhunt movie. The Rambo is on the loose in the woods in America, not Vietnam. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Pacific Northwest. Yeah, it's crazy. I'd assume two would be in Vietnam. Yeah, yeah. And glad he's not. It's so much better this way. But then he tries to climb down a very sheer cliff face. Yes. And art galt, the dickhead sheriff from Eliron appears in Helicopter and

spots him. And the pilot is like, you can't just shoot him and then also Sheriff Will is on the radio like, you can't just shoot him and then also Sheriff Will is on the radio like you can't just shoot him, but he's fucking determined. And he's shooting at Rambo and nearly hits him. And it forces John to jump off the cliff and this fucking amazing shot, I wanna know how they did it. It's such a long, he jumps,

he like, there's so much hang time and he like crashes through this tree, slows himself to a halt just about and then like lands. And what's fantastic is that he's so hurt by this. Yeah, he's from the angels his arm, he's bleeding and shit. He's having a really bad time, but he's not like some superman, he does like take damage here. And then he's hiding in the trees and artists still shooting at him. And then this, I'm not quite sure what happens here, but Rambo picks up a rock. Yeah. Was it a helicopter hits the windscreen?

The only weak spot. Yeah, just, yeah, he waited for like the cool down period between like shots and then threw it at the glowing weak spot. And the helicopter kind of like rock, the pilot is startled and pulls back on the joystick and the helicopter sort of rocks a little bit. And art, because he's leading out of the helicopter to try and shoot Ram, but he falls out. Yeah. And he dies. So he, well, he basically pops as he hits the fucking floor.

Oh yeah, he hits the fucking ground. And like Rambo runs out to him to like check, right? And sees what he's dead. And it's like so, he's, he doesn't have like a line, right? When he gets out to him, he doesn't have like a line, right? When he gets out to me, he doesn't have like a damn, I guess you fell out of that helicopter, like kind of fucking bottom line. Yeah, he doesn't do like a Bond one line.

He's just like, oh shit, this guy's dead. Yeah, again, it's like, still no one's acting and this is legit good. He's like, man, like, he didn't mean to kill him, but he's like so torn up about it, but he takes, and Galt's rifle and his jacket and the other cops appear on the bridge line and they spot the corpse and I fuck,

he's killed one of the cops, like he's a cop killer now. And his fucking like, ah, it's so cool. And in that moment, Galt truly became first blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did. Yeah, no, it's so cool. Like they see Galt dead and Rambo like steps out and it's just like guys Someone's fucking died like I don't want any more bloodshed. Yeah, it's good I'm trying to surround them and they shoot at him and they fucking shoot at him

And at this so Rambo gets away again, yeah, and then at this point the other cops get the call And then we get a little bit of call from the exposition department and they say oh we just pulled the file on John Rambo turns out he's a fucking epic. He's like a level 10 prestige warlock, he's a badass, he's green beret, he got a congressional medal of honor, he's a war here. We looked in his file and there's a picture of him as the yes, Wojak and you as the soy Wojak. Oh shit. Yeah. He's the chat meme that like really squared

your chat meme and you're the virgin meme. It turns out he's uncooked. Yeah. And he's an alpha. He's an alpha man. It's it's it's like earthy as well, dude. There's like a heft to this guy. He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- he's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- He's an ass- he's an ass- He's dead. Let's call for backup. Let's let the state troopers handle this. And then we'll hit him and it's just like, fuck you. I'm not gonna let him get away with this. It's personal. Now that's fucking art. Deadass corpse. Like, do you see this meme? Do you see that he is the yes, Wojak? And we're here with like the thin next. We can't let this fucking slide We're pointing backwards at our golds dead ass courts on this rock and going like So somebody actually calls Mitch a pansy and like starts a bit of a brief fight with Mitch again saying a lot about masculinity And then we get an interesting moment where John. Am I back?

I hear you. Oh God. Abby? Yeah, hey. Good. Hey, good. Welcome back. How you doing?

Welcome back to ours. Sorry about that. You just joined us in time for Art Gold is Dead and then Rambo. Oh, yeah. I know he's dead. So Art, so yeah, he's dead. He joined Islamic jihad. Yeah.

He fought against America. He got triggered by seeing the American soldier for the first time. That's right. And was killed in a helicopter accident. And then the exposition department from the police department called and they said, Rambo's a chad.

He's got a big dick. We've all got small dicks. And fucking David Caruso Mitch is like, I told you. I told you he was based. Those green beret guys, you know, they eat snakes and bullets. And... What we did get that line later on from someone but yeah. Shit, blood and piss, cum and things of this nature.

They're all 25 feet tall, None of us can kill her. She lays that on their decks. No, not a fucking out of fat on this guy. It's crazy. Yeah. Two invisible bricks, shit house unbelievable. Box rug at two. I missed all of my cool notes about the like the Ford Copcar that can't drive in a straight line. Ah, well, whatever. Just run for a real quick now. Just leave all of this unedited, like as a little Alice down there.

This is fine, you didn't miss that much, Alice. This is Alice checked out in order to force me to take over the podcast and stop sexting. Oh, we record. Stop sexting while we're recording the podcast. I let when I'm about to do this, I just, I sex first and then I say, I have to go and do a podcast now. I'll be back in like an hour.

Like how hard is that? Unfortunately, sometimes you say, I've got to go record a podcast and somebody likes to distract you while you're recording the podcast I have one of those two. It's a question of training, right? You just you got a fucking like establish some discipline in those Relationship Fucking trying

Anyway, and all of this can be left in Fucking happens next in this movie they I Like Yeah, the dogs they go get dog bloke and John yeah, they that's a guy that there's a guy who fully just says oh God what is he fucking say? Beautiful quote from weird dog guy we brought I Really I really like that they're like, okay, we got

bunch of cops. We got the cop who thinks he's based, the cop who doesn't like that guy. We got the sheriff and we got Mr. Dog. And Mr. Dog is going to go and he's going to set the dogs on John Rambo? It's nice to get a Mr. Sir, and I'm finally again. Yeah, yeah. It's been a minute. I'm really missed it. The go for the woods, and John opens fire at them, and they panic, and they all return fire, because one thing we see about the cops in this is that they're very undisciplined. They're not like discipline military chads like Rambo is. That's right, that's right.

The dog guy gets hit, wounded. Yep. The dogs get killed one by one. That's right, that's right. The dog guy gets hit, wounded. Yep. The dogs get killed one by one. That's right. And the third dog runs off to what we presume is Rambo's position, and then we hear a noise that is not a gunshot and a wine. So the dog has been killed by something.

Check off some knife. Mm, perhaps. Use that knife. Meanwhile, this entire like set up where they're like, we're gonna fucking go in and get this guy. We're going to get us. He's like found a fucking bit of rag. He's wrapped around himself. He's got like a nice rain poncho now. Apparently this wasn't a prop. They just found that on the set.

That rules. This uses it. He's still, so let's just learn, still got the prop actually. But he's like setting up traps. He's going fucking grier mode. He's got like half in pieces. Yeah, he's doing better to shit. It rules. And he she won't clear that this was some kind of metaphor for the Vietnam war. A bunch of dudes with M16s wandering around the like I guess forest. Being like, Oh God, he's picking us off one by one with his like superior indigenous knowledge. Yeah, cuz like boss

He's deploying his knowledge of like smooth spaces versus our striated bullshit He's he's he's Felix guitarying our ass the war for him is never over We're so the sort of more fluid spectrum of time and knowledge. Shit. He's also like contextual dependent epistemology, boss. Or as as Rambo himself says at the end of this scene. It is it is smooth and striated space. It really is.

He's a very smooth Rambo he's he's a smooth boy. He's a smooth man. That's right. He doesn't shit on the Pungi sticks though. He does not shun Pungi sticks and he takes away he doesn't kill on leafly. He doesn't kill anybody in fast. They spread out and they're trying hunt him. It's really good. It's very tense. Like, Mitch gets stabbed in the leg, Ward gets punched out, like somebody out, like he's like coming down from tree tops.

Somebody else gets caught in a spike trap. Somebody else is gooted to a tree. And like, everyone's fucking partner king because he's taking them out one by one. And then, then Will is the last one left. And then like, Rambos suddenly just like melts out of the shadows and like holds him at knife point. He's point is like look I could have killed you guys. Have you read Delos and guitar? I got a whole film school essay about this shit right here you're gonna sit

through this for about an hour and a half. No what he says is he gives him the cool line in town you're the love. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go. We all this fucking terrifying. He fucking pisses in his pants. We didn't see that. I just assumed he does. And then I ran by just that melt. It's a tactical tree.

It's like, it's yeah. Subtext, it's this. I am the yes, Wojak. And you are in fact, you're the virgin. You're the soul. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. I bet you have pronouns.

And so, of course, you have both beautiful and pronouns. Yeah. T sort of, of course, you have both beautiful and pronouns. Yeah. T-Saw, of course, cannot let it go. He can't do it because it's like a psych-American Vietnam, right? Yeah. So, instead, he gets the state police and the National Garden. Yeah, for sure.

And the state police, they send in some state police psycho who's like, you know, that's fine. We'll get us out. Don't get more out of this. We'll see the TV cruiser here. So now it's a news story. And they're like, man, John Randall. Yeah, I, John Randall, detail. I really like as the news story being,

yeah, they only escape with their lives. Thanks to their like superior law enforcement training. Yeah, it's good. You know, I really like it. Yeah. Even fun, love it. Even a bit more like, we're not even, we're not entirely sure what's led to this conflict in the first place. We just have one man dead. No, like it's crazy. But then, but then having got the state police are not on it, you know, who else gets in on it? Yeah, there's a country little man. First,

though, and there's a moment where the state trooper is, is there, and one of the cops comes, and he mentions to the sheriff in front of the state trooper is there and one of the cops comes and he mentions to the sheriff in front of the State trooper. I think some of the deputies were a little bit harsh with Rambo and that maybe this provoked him and the sheriff dismisses it and he's just like, no, if Prisoner has a problem, he should come to me and I'll kick the deputies ass. He went outside the chain of command. He didn't handle it, he didn't file the right fucking forms about being abused in prison. So we start fucking around with the law, then anything might happen. That's right. At which point, sort of long shadow at the mouth of the defense, this line is cool. This is fucked up.

Yeah, you get Rambo's mentor, his boss, Colonel Troutman, saying, I'm not here to protect Rambo from you. I'm here to protect you from him. Yeah. This is the show stuff he's wearing. This like army officer raincoat and a beret. Terrible beret. Like fruity.

It looks fruity as far. Yeah, he's good as well. But like, the thing about Antoy, he's the anti for super-sorture commander. Yes, but the thing about Colonel Trautman is, and once you notice this, you can't not notice it, everything he says sounds like an MF Doom sample. Like, you get the first verse and then, and then it hits you with... You don't seem to want to accept the fact that you're dealing with an expert in gorilla warfare. Doom is becoming more powerful than ever.

Mr. President, I am controller of planet X. And like every single one of his lines, both sounds like an MF Doom sample, but also is delivered in a sort of like 10% fruity way, whereas like an expert in the middle of the episode. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I'm not sure whether this was like a deliberate choice for the movie or whether this was just the actor style, but he is giving it about 10% more than everyone else, not just in his voice,

but also in his face and his physical acting as well. Like go back and watch this filmlessness with an eye to this particular performance because it is interesting. It does stand out. I can't decide whether I like it because in one sense it kind of takes me out of the flow of the film because I'm like, okay, this act is kind of doing a bit more. But in the other sense, it does track that this guy would have a different way of moving and speaking and being than everyone else because he is from a different context.

So, I don't know, I'm not really sure what I feel about it, but it's a cool performance. Colonel MF Doom Sample is mostly in this plot for one reason. He's... How you how cool Rambos? He's Rambos hype, man. Rambos dad rocks up and it's just like, my boy is so fucking cool though, guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's so good because the entire conversation between like Teasel and Trautman is just like them saying lines kind of past each other. Just like every action film lines just like going but it's like I strictly speaking he slipped up. You're like it'd be breathing. And Teasel was like that's just great Colonel. You came out here to find out why one of your machines blew a gasket. Yeah, it's really good dialogue. It was like, yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, it was fun. So what Colonel MF Doom samples suggests is, look, let Rambo go.

Let him slip away. Let him get past you, take the L. And then, because right now he's in fucking like live or die fight or flight mode. And he will just kill anywhere the fucking who comes near him. So let him go. Let him calm down. we'll pick him up in fucking two weeks when he's drifted onto another town, you'll just arrest him in a car wash and it'll be fucking fine. Okay, otherwise he's going to make this an absolute fucking nightmare for you. And then MFJM samples like, that's the plan. And then Sheriff Will is like, no, I've got another

plan. He's got a human. Yeah, I can get this guy. I don't got a chimp. He can get the sky. I think he's got a lot of epic years. I'm going to make him say that he's the fucking soy chad. Yes. Because he humiliated him. And also he's American and he hates that. That's right.

He's refreshing. The page constantly to see if Rambo's commented. It's embarrassing really. Yeah, it is. So they, really. It's just, yeah. So they, the, So they realize that Rambo has taken Art Gounts radio, and then I, well, he's got to be listening in on us, right?

So, so what happens is, and we'll say, you're right, you come here, your kernel MF Dream sample, call your boy, and tell him to come in, call, call your boy right now. And then he does. And he calls him Viet Nam style. Yeah. He like fully PTSDs him in his own way. Yeah.

Nice. It's his very old call sign. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Broadside calling Danny Boy. And he tries to get him to come in. And Rambo's like, no, they started it. And so drops the title of the movie at this point, I think, which is they drew first blood, not me. Yeah, we get some really, we get a really pointed moment here where Rambur says, they're all dead, everyone on the old team is dead,

I've the only one left. And then Colonel Omafjim's help was just like, what about Barry? They go from the opening of the film, he's like, he's dead too. He's Barry. He died. He died a huge Barry. He died a cancer, he's a little Barry, by the end.

He died little Barry, you know. Yeah, yeah. And then he says, well, you know, John, this won't do. You're hurting friendly civilians here. And he says, there are no friendly civilians, which was like, I don't know. Vietnam, like Vietnam.

Yo, this movie about Vietnam. That's crazy. That's like the 70s version of making a movie about 9-11 is this movie is about Vietnam. Yeah, that's true. Movies can be about being transgender or 9-11's brackets Vietnam. Yeah, 9-11-1. 9-11 brackets Vietnam. Yeah, yeah. So they're tracking his location through the radio. At this point, at this point, we have to get some like national guard comedy. Yeah. It's kind of like a long the weekend. What is it? What is a American tradition of like disrespecting your own military

reservists? And you know, you know that I'm completely humorous about this shit. I looked this up. 9,000 dudes in the National Guard went to Vietnam. 156 of them died. Fuck you. This is lazy comedy. But the joke is, are there all just dudes from the town and they're like fucking idiots and they don't really want to be there? You know what I'm saying?

I got work in the morning. I'm looking at myself. I'm like, it's good. It's good. Yeah. They're doing, they're doing the shit from stripes. And they like track Rambo down to his cave and they sort of threaten him, shoot at him for a bit.

Rambo runs out of ammunition and then they blow him up with a rocket launch. Yeah, they're really happy about using it too. They're like, come on, use the rocket launch. Come on, come on. The movie is portraying them like clearly it's just like make believe playing army basically. Just being like these guys, like the PCs.

I think the spoilers, but I think this movie might be about Vietnam because they're really happy to like open up on Rambo even though the sheriff is on the radio and like don't shoot him, I want him alive. They open up and one of them's like, get some. Yeah, yeah. They're like pretending to be. They're holding the trigger down like,

yeah, they're pretending to be like, you know, big, big Vietnam war heroes. Yeah, absolutely. I see if they fucking like, okay, so this rock and show blows up the front, doesn't kill Rambo, but he gets trapped inside the mine, which leaves him out of the picture for a bit. Then, then what's going to have to to go into the caves to escape the sun.

When Will and Trautman rock up the National Guard guys are just doing the Eogema, like photo opportunity just all together. Yeah, yeah. So fucking naked. It's good. It makes his way through the mine. He's attacked by rats. Yeah. Yeah, these are bats in the book way through the mind. He's attacked by rats. Yeah.

Yeah, these are bats in the book, by the way. Really? He goes through like, snakey to thing. Yeah, often, often under-discussed is the rat fight in Rambo. People then like, to talk about the rat fight. Yeah, he gets the... I'm going to use the only animal. This is the only animal that scares him, too.

Yeah. Like, he gets bitten by a rat. That's the only thing that makes him go like, it's like, ah, fuck. And like, flail around. It's like, rat bites, my one nemesis. He like, like, crushes some rat. My favorite detail of this, and it's because they like this like, survivalist thing, as we see him like, make a like, burning torch, like a flaming torch. Yeah, yeah. This is the only time in any movie I've ever seen anyone reload a flaming torch. Yeah, it's so funny.

Sorry, say what he does. He has to stop and like tear off some more strips from his like poncho to reload his door. He's like, reloads. Yeah, you would, I guess. Yeah. I've never seen anyone do it in a movie though. Yeah. Good detail.

Yeah. It is a good little detail, but it's also very funny when you process it through the lens of that is a reload animation. So meanwhile everyone thinks Rambo's dead. So back to town. He goes back to town. He goes into his office where we see that he has a little shadow box with some medals because he was a true. He's got a DSC, a purple heart and a silver star. I think he even has a line early, Rumbly says, do you think Rambos the only guy who had a shit time in Vietnam? Right.

Yeah, and it made him hate America. Yeah. It made him become gay and he's so communist. Yeah, exactly. Which, you know, you love to see. I wish we'd jumped a little bit more into his past. Yeah. Could have done more with that of the film, I think.

I do genuinely like this sort of thing in like 70s, 80s movies of like leaving characters as ciphers a bit, whereas now you'd get like, oh, this is a sort of, it's a Disney property so you get like an extended mini series about exactly what that guy was doing. Yeah, you get to find out exactly what it's like. Well, I think the Disney extended mini series,

I think they're great media. I think they're really good. I think everyone should watch them. Where the hell are you gonna find out? You could have gotten his iconic name. Yeah, you could have been cast as like that dude's girlfriend while he was in Vietnam. Yeah, that's money.

That's money on the tape. Yeah, it is. That's culture. Yeah. That's true. I think it is nice that we get to see to cut him. I think it's nice that we get to see how Will and Trauma like respond in the seaming aftermath of Rambo's death

Like they even have a little meeting in the fucking Some shit. Yes, they do and Tizal will says to him first of all I mean, what would you have done with them if they came in? Get wrap your arms around them give them a big sloppy kiss. Do you have explored each other's bodies and Disad Sloppy kiss. Do you have explored each other's bodies? And Taramon looks like. Do you have like,

Sanjay? I don't know. I don't know. There's a great line a minute after that. We're like, they're talking, the conversation has moved on and they're talking about like, killing or whatever at this point.

Yeah, on and on. And like, Tizal says it's like, confusing or whatever. But what Troutman says is he looks into the middle distance and he goes, you know, Vietnam, Rambo, and I got pretty confused. Yeah, they did explore his bodies. Like that is that is actually emotionally, romantically. Traumat and Rambo have absolutely fucked. Yeah, for sure. I'm just going to A.S. It's pretty real quick. They were sexy again. Meanwhile, Rambos. Yeah, meanwhile, Rambos, like, in a cave beating Raps.

It's so good. Yeah, the like, the like, heart to heart across this table, but really, this character is in to cut with Rambos fighting a horn and a rat. She has a chance. It's really fucking good. Yes, to do like a rat king boss at the end, too. Yeah.

And like, Will's felt like, I, man, I really fucking wanted to kill him myself. Like, Will is, it's like it's happened. It's in the past now for him. And he's just like analyzing his response to it. He's like, it's crazy. I just, I was the hours gone. I wasn't like, I get it.

Self-knowledge. Yeah. He's like, he climbs back down from the like sort of tragic collision course that they're on. He's like, man, I just, I really wanted to kill that guy because he humiliated me. Speaking of crime, we get this moment where Rambo climbs out of the mine

up a ladder and into the light. And there's a really nice moment because I think a lesser film would have had him spot the ladder and then immediately go up it. But instead of how many spots the ladder, he looks up at the light on it, and he just puts his hands on the wrong and just kind of like rests for a moment

and he doesn't have a line. But again, it's like that moment where he finds Galt's body where he doesn't have a line, but his reaction to this is just like, you can tell that he's like grateful and like, thank God I fucking made it through this difficult rap maze. It's just a really nice little moment that just adds a little something to the character. Just read the letter.

Acting, I gotta fucking not acting somewhere. He's saving the game. Oh, which, yeah. He said he was a checkpoint. I'm not fucking redoing the goddamn rat level again. Hate this shit. He goes through the rat level, he's like climb- Who levels in total oblivion.

All of Sneaky to copied is copied from Rambo It's through the entire opening to oblivion It's just and I actually laughed out loud because he opens He opens like up the top of the trap door at the top of the mine and he's like directly outside of a lease cap He like he like does some stealth section and then he like, hard jacks, a truck. And if he carjacks a truck in a friendly way, which is what he gets in it.

Yeah, he gets it. And the guy's like, no, and he's like, all right, go on, no, how you get out. He's gonna be pissed. He has to his name first. He like puts a knife to his throat, he's like, watch your pronouts. And the guy's like, uh, uh, he, him.

He's like, uh, I can't throw his throat. Like, uh, she, uh, is like, okay, cool. Get out of the fucking truck. Um, but also, there's a point with the guys being like, there's a point of, what are we doing? Sorry, what are we doing? Rambo is answering, what? Rambo never asks you what your pronouns are.

No, no, no. Rambo knows what your biological pronouns are. Rambos says, we do, and the soldier says, did you just assume my gender? And we get this fun moment where the guy who's being knife, like, Kajak looks at Rambos, I don't look at me, look at the road. That's how accidents happen.

It's real, it's a fun little life. He also asks some what he has in the back. And the answer is the inevitable M60 machine guns, right? Which will be important later and will accidentally set up the like major thing of this character check of 16 at some point he has like tied a bandana around his head Yeah, I know real reason that was the moment when he truly became Rambo Yes true Yeah, I'm like no real reason. That was the moment when he truly became Rambo. Yes, true. I love it when Rambo said it's Rambo and time and Ramdol over those guys. And so it's not just the movie of Rambo and he finished it.

Yeah, that's fine. So Tisel's like, throughout when you were a fucking psychopath, which is true. Yeah. I find Tisel an interesting character. And then he's like, I'm gonna go back to the sheriff's office and just fucking, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna chill, all right, fuck off. He does that and then is immediately told,

oh, by the way, Chief Rambo's fucking escaped. Great shot though. It's like a machine gun. Really good shot. He's like, they keep his office in the background of a long shot. Yeah. And they just let the guy walk out of the frame

and out of focus to go tell him. Yeah, like the door opens and it's wordlessly just door opens, he steps in and you just see Charles and just like, not Charles, so I tease him, just stand up, just like, okay. Oh, it's time to get done. It's time to go on the hub rest time. I give the movie.

Yes. So at this point, the cops call it in. So I tap free. The. So at this point, the cops call it in. So I sat free. The police are chasing Rambo. And then he tries to push them off the road. And again, I really like still owns acting in this because he looks so scared in this scene. He doesn't look like I'm a tough bad guy behind the wheel

of a truck. He looks fucking terrified. Yeah. Looks like he's operating off like absolute instinct at this point. Yeah, he looks like scared for his life. It's fucking terrified. Yeah, looks like he's operating off like absolute instinct at this point. Yeah, he looks like scared for his life. It's fucking great acting. He does end up ramming them off the road with,

I would say one of the least merited car exploits. Yeah, and this one's crazy. That's just like, it's really funny. They, they, what happens? No, this is like in in Goldfinger where like the one car explodes just have to having left the road like before it even crashes into anything. What happens? No, this is like in Goldfinger where the one car explodes, just having left the road before it even crashes into anything. It's just like jumps and then catches fire in the air.

Like it's crazy. I think the power-taping supervisor got a little bit too excited with that. Oh, that's cool. Who won? Yeah, exactly. So at this point, Rambo is now left with a truck and a light machine gun.

He is gonna make war on this little town of Hope Washington. He does by setting fire to a gas station and blowing up the truck. First of all, he runs through a roadblock and we get this triumphant music like, yeah, you run through a police roadblock, brook, brook, brook, brook, brook, brook. Yeah, let's go.

So having finished the driving mission, he... Yeah, nothing really comes of that. Yeah, he crashes, he deliberately crashes the truck into a petrol station, sets up a phone, blows up the truck and the petrol station. Yeah. And you're starting to like... He's like, bro, this is not a marathon.

He's terrible anymore, man. Yeah, he's doing domestic terrors, and he's doing like the Tet Offensive on like a major urban center. He's like blowing up stores and stuff. And teaser was just sort of like, okay, I'm camping is what I'm doing. This is going to get one V1. I know it is. So I'm going to camp on the roof of the Sheriff's Office. He's like, I'm familiar with roaring round pages of revenge. He will be coming to the Sheriff's Office. Yeah.

He will come to the office and shoot him through the skylights. Yeah, he's on the roof. And you get, and actually pretty tense sort of game of cat and mouse, where Rambo sees Tis all on the roof and busts into the Sheriff's Office and shoots up through the ceiling. He shoots some power lines like power lines first. Like that's a total power. That's a total power. It's cool sequence, but he's like sneaking around the time

and there's massive machine gun. Yeah, let's see if he breaks into a gun store and blows it up to create a distraction. It's cool. It's cool as well. For sort of like, again, no real reason, but like, it's a shock and awe at this point, baby. He's just, what kind of, yeah?

Yeah, listen, here's the thing. I really enjoyed this movie. I've seen the second movie of this, and I want to get my enjoying the Rambo series. It's like, I want to get my fill of it, okay? Because I don't think it's going to get any better. Oh, I'm sad about that. Yeah, that'd be a particular,

but I'm interested in your takes of how they fumble this But now in the sort of like in the fifth part of the movie the politics drops like a lead Wait, we've been hinting at it before Like these are the cops who hate like Americans, but like we really get to because he shoots T is off Yeah wound him and his you know uncle Sam sort of like Exp uh, exponent, you know, Colonel Trout and Chosa. But it's his name actually Sam. It's actually Sam. Shit.

Yeah. He like shows up and goes, Hey, while you were not paying attention, every cop in the world just rolled up outside and they have you surrounded it. It's not the end of reddention out there. Yeah, can you as a man now talk about your emotions even one time? Can we please for the love of God check in with our blocs? Guys will literally shoot up the town of Hope Washington rather than go to therapy. Yes, yeah, and so Rambo, Rambo does go to therapy and what Rambo says is And I do what I had to do to win, but somebody wouldn't let us win

And I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport protest to mean spin Call me a baby killer and all kinds of foul crap Now we got some fucking politics. So first of all we got to start with I Did what I had to do to win the Vietnam War, which is, you know, the war crimes. We're alluding to the war crimes that that Dragon alluded to earlier with Rambo and I got confused to be an arm to be sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely no contradiction between that and taking

it really personally to be called a baby killer. But second of all, somebody wouldn't let us win. And I don't think he means the people's army of Vietnam. Now of course he doesn't. I think, no, come on, it's a donkstoss legenda. It's exactly the same thing as World War One, where it's like somebody was disloyal and now because they hated America, they humiliated our veterans. That. Like I access to you fully, I accept the politics of this movie are extremely bad

and they will only get worse over the course of this. But I think that this is the only movie in which there is like a quite reasonable anti-war reading just based on going, this is what Rambo would think. Yeah, I agree with Devon because Rambo goes on this rant and it starts with Colonel Sam saying Rambo it's over and he says nothing is over. You don't just turn it off and he talks about how I can't sleep.

You know, I'm jumping all the time. He says out there, I was elite, I won medals here, I can't fucking hold down a job at a car wash. Then he goes into the political bit, which is not all of it, it's just the middle section. And the final, the third section of this rant, which is fucking beautifully active. So well done. I disagree.

I disagree to that. It's beautifully acted. It made me laugh my fucking ass off. I cried. Because the emotional core of this is the Stallone Diction, let's him down. And he talks about how his friend got blown up

and the fucking, I have the drop. God, man, I wanna go home, Charlie. I wanna drive my chubby eyes on what I can't find a fucking lady. I can't let you leave. This is brilliant. There's nonsense, it's a melancholy. It's not, it's beautiful because he's not articulate in this moment.

He's lost in time. He doesn't know where the fuck he is. It's realistic that it's not. It's not in the most articulate guy in the world. It's not inarticulate in a way that like, overguy undergoing emotional turmoil. It's inarticulate in the way of a bad actor. It's not, it's not.

It's not in the way of a man who is crying as he says this. And like, it is kind of funny. And it is kind of absurd that he's like, I want to go home and drive my Chevy. He's like, but I can't fucking find your legs. Not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! It's not! Oh, they could only save part of her spleen. And that was a line that you laughed at. And now I was just like, fuck me, that is powerful. Because it is the kind of absurd realistic, unusual sentence that you would say when you're in a very unusual and very bleak scenario. No, I'm sorry, this scene is fucking beautiful, especially in the context of the fact that you're out the rest of the film.

Rambo was almost completely taciturn. And here, the floodgates just opened. It was gorgeous. Name for me a different, like, it's just, it's incredible to see a movie end where like the emotional core of it, like the fucking day new Montfilis character is that he breaks down.

And that's the end of the movie. That's never gonna fucking happen again. I'll tell you that for fucking free. Not in this goddamn series of movies. I, I, I think you're both giving it way too much credit, both politically and emotionally. Yes. I think you are invited very much to sympathize with the idea that, first of all, the woke purses at home made it so you actually did lose the Vietnam War, and yes, Rambo is damaged, but it's both sides in it where it's like,

oh, they didn't care, but also the hippies didn't either, which is nihilistic and fascistic. And the second thing is he says, when I got home, they protested me, they spat at me, and they called me a baby killer. There was a book called The Spitting Image, Myth Memory in the Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lemke,

which I highly recommend. And part of the thing is, this has been a very successful right-wing narrative that anti-war protesters were, in general, disrespectful to veterans, and in the specific spat on them. And they can find not one credible instance of this ever happening. It is purely a myth.

As far as anyone knows, it never happened. And it's a tool to divide American public opinion and totally obliterate the legacy of any kind of anti-war activism by veterans of which there was a lot. Fucking John Kerry testified in front of Congress about like being asked to die for a mistake and he just does not figure in this analysis at all, neither does anyone else, neither does anyone like throwing medals over the White House fence in disgust because you're only allowed to sympathize on the level of

the guy got his friends legs blown off and that's sad. Instead of any of them ever felt anything about it that made them want to do anything. And it's like a consciously nihilistic thing that is an attempt to like defang and like disarm any kind of American anti-war and specifically anti-Vietnam war politics. I, it's a reprehensible movie and it sucks. It's like, it's not well acted. I, I truly don't think it is. I politically, I will grant you, yeah, I think you're right.

It's also very noticeable that none of this is applied to the Vietnamese people. As in like, well, do you think the war might have sucked for them to roll? Like, yeah. No, fully, I will grant you that the politics of this is like real bad. And like a myth, as you say, a right-wing myth. But I'm sorry, I will not go see it. I think this performance is fucking beautiful. I mean, just like as an actor, like, game-recognized game, I think it's... I think it's... If you watch it out of context and just watch it on YouTube Listers you won't get you won't get the full effect of it. I think you've got to watch the whole movie Where he's like very silent. He's very taster and he's very stoic and then this final scene where he breaks

I think that is a decision by a salon and the director as well that is just absolutely fucking five stars Maybe I mean, maybe this is just something that I have like a low tolerance for. I don't know, but like, Troutman sort of like looks at him and looks down the barrel of the camera, like, damn, society. He hugs him. He hugs him and run for a prize. And it's like, fuck me, man.

He like walks him out past the cops and you see Rambo looking like tremendously damaged and stuff and it's like, That's the end of the fucking movie. The damn war bad, but like mostly when you don't support it, question mark. No winners in war, but not in a political way. Yeah, and that's again an incredibly fascist sentence. Yeah. To be like, oh, you mean the war, this thing that like totally ablates any humanity

that the people involved in it? Well, that's good actually if you really commit, you know? I don't know, because Rambo, I'm not sure it's as simple as that, because Rambo did commit to the war. No, I'm, but it didn't do many good things. But America didn't, and America was like sort of disloyal to him and to itself and now it like sort of like hates itself. And it's a divided society.

OK, yeah, but I want to draw your attention to the fact that that's not the core of Rambo's rant. That's only in the middle section. That's the justification he's giving for his anger. But then actually what we see underneath that anger is the grief that I've lost his friend. And the trauma of that. I think that he's throwing that out to justify the way

he is, to justify the way he's's feeling and then when that doesn't help, he finally just breaks down and confronts his terrible memory. I don't know. I think it's something that the movie really expects you to sort of like believe and support. But I will say, you can't sort of like make this argument from either side about any of the following moves. That's right. And I do think it is a bit bittersweet. I will grant you the seeing the end of this movie and knowing ahead of time where this character is going.

But there is something else that I want to draw out at about first blood, which is in the course of adapting it, Stallone had them change a lot of the plot. And there's a quote from him about this, because in Rambo, first of all, in the novel he dies at the end, kills Teasel, kills many cops. And Stallone, I think, accidentally says more about the American psyche and the American idea of the outlaw than he means to here because he says, the original Rambo was so bloodthirsty. The story was so hard, so terrifying every step of the way.

What I did with Rambo was try to keep one foot in the establishment and one foot in the Outlaw or frontier image. I wanted him to be accepted by the mainstream, but also be a criminal. So he has some strong patriotic views, and he loves the system, he just doesn't like a lot of the people who live and work in it. And I think that's a very astute observation of Rambo as a character, but also pretty much everything you apply that to fucking American

sniper if you wanted to. And I love this idea that like we're making explicit the like, no, he has to like sympathize with the establishment and be like within and against it because it's constantly filled with like internal traitors who are weakening it. That's very revealing to me. And I think we're gonna have to like double and triple and they know, quintuple down on that

over the course of the next. What again? I'm really using this. Now, I wanna draw your attention to the fact that the people who are against Rambo in this film principally the sheriff certainly use political language and arguments sometimes. However, the core of their beef with him is an emotional one. A wheel is not against him, like, will, you know, the cops call him soldier boy, they make fun of him

for this, yes, true. But Will is against Rambo because of Will's own pride and his own stubbornness. And so I don't know, I think the characters in this film... That's because of wanting to preserve the sort of like nice middle class character of a, like a rural town. I don't know, quite much to consider. Basically, what I think is like Abby is great about the acting. I wouldn't, I don't know, I think about the acting and I believe that you probably do. I know I don't, but I'm entitled to my sort of like ignorance here, I feel.

I agree with you completely about like the politics of this movie. I think this, you are fully right. This movie believes that like the Vietnam vets were failed by the American public. This movie believes everything that they're putting in the mouth of John Rambo like granted 100%. However, I do still think that taking in isolation you can read quite heavy anti-war sentiments into this if you would like to and I would. anti-war sentiments into this if you would like to and I would. But the thing is, if there's no further business, we do have a more scientific way to discuss something like this. We do. I think we've talked enough about what this movie says about. Have you talked

about what it says about masculinity? Oh God, it's crazy. First of all, every guy is a lot harder than her. I do want to go over my heart about her? Which is a very only guy that's going obviously. Yes, I do want to fucking talk about that. Because I think this film, there's only one woman who says anything. And I was reflecting on this. That's about a dude dying. Does not pass the back, Delta. And I think this is a rare case where the film is actually better because of it.

Because I think it's a case where it's like, I think this movie is, it's something is the first thing that's saying, what I think part of what it's saying is that the patriarchy hurts men as well. And even when there's no women around to blame for like, oh, well, you know, being a man's great, but like bitches, right? Even when there's no women around, it still sucks.

Yeah. All of the villains are motivated entirely by like, their own pride in themselves. They don't want to be shown up. Like, as men, like, as men. As men, the whole of the pansey. The whole of the pansey. The whole of the pansey. Yeah, fuck yeah.

Like, yeah, I think. Like we joke about, about Trautman and Rainbow exploring each other's bodies, but it is absolutely presented as like an intimate, personal relationship between them. Which like, you know, no one else is sort of like able to connect with him on that level. I don't think they're like, within the, no one else is sort of like able to connect with him on that level.

I don't think they're like within the text of the movie. No, I don't think I'd expect you to think that they're fucking on each other, right? But it's definitely like, you cannot understand what it was like for these dudes and what it was like, sort of like, it's trying to have it both ways with violence as well. We'll talk about that with unprovoked violence. But I think it's sort of like treats violence as an inherent part of masculinity and it feels conflicted about that. In fact, the National Guardsmen are an important part of us because these guys are like, they're shown to be not proficient at violence and they're shown to be less men because of it.

We're supposed to think that they're ridiculous. Well, we are supposed to laugh at them, but the message I took from their scene is just like, they don't really know what war is, as Ramburg does. And if they knew, if they really knew what it was, they don't really know what war is, whereas Rambo does. And like, if they knew, if they really knew what it was, they wouldn't be like this. Yeah, I could take that. That's a plusies.

And civilians, and they're the kind of people who sort of like let America down. But I think we can sort of like fold this into a more scientific discussion. That's right. Because we have a science-based rating system called the SCUM system,

that's a smart cultural and sensitivity, unprovoked violence and misogyny. How smart me do we think Rambo is? I think there's a couple of lines for it's a little bit, a little bit please, just a couple, where it's just like, God didn't make Rambo, I did. It's just like, you come to the MF, all of the MF Doom some, pause.

Some money kicking it out for a couple of minutes. There's definitely a couple of like movie ass lines in there. I give it like two or three maybe. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that I grant you the sort of melodrama with Rambo at the end is very sincere. And I think it's like a sincere movie in that respect,

but yeah, there are a couple of months like that. I'd say it too. Yeah, he sincerely holds beliefs to the wrong, but yeah, he holds them sincerely. Cultural to the wrong, but yeah, hold on sincerely Cultural insensitivity. This is interesting. Oh mission is baseline two. I believe it's the standard Yeah, it's it's an all-white movie bar like one war buddy who is dead and does not appear and his family and the Vietnamese torture That's right. That's right. That's true. Vietnamese people only appear on the screen torturing porn star Moustache Rams. That's true.

That's not a mission, which means one guy is there. Yeah. We want to leave room to go up. Yes. Yes. I would say from a mission and from the idea that the worst thing that happened in Vietnam was a bunch of white dudes getting their feelings hurt, that goes up to a full... And that tortured, but I would say for...

It's torture, gets... Torture does hurt your feelings. That's one of the key things about it, I would say. Yeah, man, it depends on the torture. Over half of it. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely. It's not very sensitive towards the people over North. No, it's not. Yeah, it's not.

So, four. Four, yeah. Unprovoked violence. Now, this, this is going to be a little discussion, isn't it? Because I think the movie is trying to have its cake and eat it. I think that's why it has every motherfucker high-part John Rambo is like secretly you actually want to be placed in a situation where all of the ways in which you're interestingly fucked up and damaged and dangerous, you have an excuse to use all of those,

and everybody's going to find out how dangerous you are. Yeah, it's called being a content creative. It's called being a man, I would say. That's a very American masculinity sort of thing, is like, you're lucky I'm on parole, you're lucky my kids here. If I was really going to kick your ass, then you would know. And it's sort of like, you have this benefit of being forced into it, where it's like, no, we actually don't have to confront the ways in which I'm like damaged by this until the very end. And then, it'll be done. That's good, because that's good point.

What the thing is is they go to great pains to be like none of the violence on Rambo's behalf is unprovoked for the first half of it. But then when he's done escorting Ariel Septim through the fucking oblivion, Donald's like, he gets out, then everything he does is 100% on prologue, because they think he's dead and he just goes for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. You could have just run at that point. That's a good point, Dev.

The entire actual rampage, I would say, is on provoked violence. I would also say there's an interesting thing about provocation here because it is Rambo who decides to like make a point. He's the one who turns Rambo to fight for the sheriff. Yeah. And I think there's an interesting thing here where of like self-deception within the movie where it's like that doesn't count as provoking a fight because although you factually did provoke it, morally you were right.

Yes, I believe that that is the case. Because if that was the provocation then we would be accepting Tisler's thing of just like, you don't wanna be in this town. This town is like, not for you, keep moving. That's the initial provocation, not him turning back. And it just, just Rambo walking away, that's not a movie. You know, for the structure of the thing, he has to do that.

But it also like depends on him telling himself and in fact, everyone else that like, no, they were pushing me. And it's like, yeah, sort of. But like, you're, you're also engaged in this escalation here, John Rambo. Oh, yeah. So I mean, unprovoked violence, I know this is going to go higher through the series, but he doesn't kill anyone. He's always like honest. No, he doesn't kill anyone. No, he doesn't.

He has a real fig leaf, by the way, that does not kill anyone. What about this guy's he blow up? Oh, yeah, better. I don't think. It's actually a team rules. When you're in a car, yeah, when you're in a car, you're fine. Even if it gets riddled with bullets because what sort of like happens is either there's a shot where you get out and dust yourself off or the viewer mentally inserts one.

Yeah, I think that's what's meant to happen. The car is damaged, but your health bar doesn't start going down until the car is completely destroyed. Yes, that's right. You've got to get a picture of the first. That's a tough one then. What are we going to give you? It's quite, I think it's already quite high. It's already quite high.

I would go to give me some wiggle remote, say a five. Yeah, I think about two. Yeah, okay, I can see that. Another complicated one, and then I want to add something even more complicated once we've done before we taught at the final score. Sure. Missourge any? Well, I mean, by a mission,

mission is two, baseline. Yeah, again, it's interesting the home of sociality of this movie, and even when it's men insulting each other, they don't really compare themselves to... They don't compare each other to women, they compare each other to gay or worse men. Yeah, I think the film is trying to tell a story about dudes and guys when they rock and don't rock. That's certainly not every story has to have ones. I eat some men's wine just don't think. Sometimes when they just can't do it.

Sure, whatever. Feminist podcast, taking a line. Sometimes it's fine when bitches don't be in the movies. You can tell the story about men and the way the men are on their own. I think, really, I agree that half of all people are still women, but I don't think, I think that they missed the trick by not having any female cops, but the gender disparity is not unheard of, I guess,

in the future. If you had made a richer woman, that would have been interesting. That would have been. Yes, so maybe Mr. Trickler. Actually, to be honest, I think the movie would have been more interesting if any of these people had been a woman with a possible exception of Rambo. Like if Will had been a woman or art or Uncle Sam.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sort of like willing to accept the argument that, like, it's a very focused story about dudes and therefore it's yeah fine, I'd go like two. I'm willing to do that. I think we can sort of like ratchet up on that in future episodes, future Rambo too. Oh, I wouldn't because I opened the Rambo 2 and I gotta tell you. Yeah. I've seen Rambo 3. Oh, the only Rambo to and I gotta tell you yeah I've seen Rambo 3 Oh, I've seen besides this one TV in the middle of the night

I couldn't sleep and I saw Rambo 3 so I'm very excited I've never seen any Rambo I other than this one and something else I do you know you know Rambo is an Apple by the way he's named after a sort of cultivar of apple. Nice. Um, John, I just like that. Yeah. Yeah, John golden delicious. John Pink lady, John Jazz. If you've got money to burn and you go to say it's reason, and something else I wanted to add here, this movie made me reflect on the fact that so Rambo we are told in the first act,

just explicitly mentally ill. He needs help. He needs treatment. Yep. He's crazy. This movie made me reflect on the killing of Jordan Neely in the US and the ways in which the police often do not respond in a great way to people who have mental illness. In fact, I think the news has just been announced a few hours ago that the police in Scotland are gonna stop responding to emergency mental health calls. No, Scotland, that's the met.

That's the met. They're gonna stop responding to emergency mental health calls now on a sort of like institutional spike basis that someone else should do it. I mean, they probably should. Well, yes, I mean, I think it's the right decision made for all the wrong reasons. I agree. It's. Well, yes. I think it's the right decision made for all the wrong reasons. I agree.

It's going to, like, yeah. But yeah. So yeah, you're certainly right. I think it's also a very sort of like movie view of mental illness where it's like, but mental illness is what happens when they actually don't understand your power level. And if they trigger you, you like pop off, like,

operate a style. And that's cool. And yeah, I mean, granted Rambo doesn't end the movie feeling great about it, but you are as the audience invited to sympathize in a way that I don't think bears that much resemblance to actual PTSD. Yes, no, you are. I don't think that if you trigger sort of like trigger a like PTSD flashback or something like that You're sort of like picturing yourself with a drawn-on like trucker moustache getting getting shit thrown on you by Vietnamese people but I don't know I don't know. We had very different experiences of being in the closet, so I don't know

Being Rambo is a form of trauma. I mean, yeah, this is a trauma-informed Rambo. Like, legitimately, that's true. And that's another thing that I think is going to come up later is they will not stick to that. Really? This is the last movie where we're going to care about this. Oh, that's such a shame.

Yeah. Yeah, no. That's why this is a really interesting series to do is just like how hard they drop concepts even on the second one. I would have loved to see Rambo too, and it's just Rambo and a therapist for like 90 minutes. I'll talk about it on the episode. Anyway, so that gives us a total score of 13, which is not the best movie we've ever seen, but it's pretty damn good, better than die hard.

It's pretty good. I think the thing is, there's a golf between this movie and the way this movie is like was absorbed by the American public and remembered by the American public. Yeah, I mean, I think there's plenty of people who've seen this movie and are wrong about it because they're like, oh yeah, don't push me.

I'm a tier one operator. And it's like, no, the point of the movie is that Rambo is very unwell. People who have half seen this movie and who got from it, yeah, Rambo is when you sort of like, you know, with the bandana and the M60 and you'd fuck it. People shoot a bunch of stuff. People like, so Vestus alone. Yeah. Who who maybe didn't understand why Rambo was like, headwig rules that like they've accidentally made a good movie.

Rambo is that's definitely a trans woman, but the makers don't know. Generally, my stance is that I think they accidentally made a movie a lot more powerful than they thought it was. That's true. That's true. It's, it's okay. But we will return for Rambo first blood part two and elegantly titled movie. Surely, first blood part two, which of course is the sequel to first blood, colon part two. Yes, they added two additional subtitles to the extant title, one of which is Rambo. It's pretty good. Very excited to see you there. We did it. They did a colon pull through Rambo to his self-learned. God damn it.

We have a Patreon $5 a month, 5 pounds a month, whatever it is. You can pay for an extra bonus episode. The next one's my pick. I'm going to do the handmade and to like, devastate Abby emotionally. Thanks for coming on. I ain't got a sense of sex. I don't. I do.

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