Rambo (2008), a.k.a. John Rambo, the fourth one

There are hardly any words that can describe the amount of action in this film. Nonstop, realistic, and scary yet awesome are just a few words that describe this movie. I have never in my life seen a movie as real and uncut as this one; and I have seen a lot of action flicks. This is definitely not a movie for those who are weak of the stomach or the heart, but more for people who love war films and can take a ton of blood and guts being spewed everywhere.

The very first scene is a real video of Burma. In real life, Burma is basically at war with itself and we, the audience, are treated to real footage of dead people, injuries, and the military doing their thing as the opening sequence. The next scene involves Burmese military taking citizens out into a nice little field to play a nice little game of fetch…or die. The moviemakers spare you nothing; people exploding, shooting children, raping women, cutting/blowing off arms and legs, throwing babies in fires, and that’s just what happens in one of the first fight scenes. Stallone wanted to draw a picture for everyone of the horrible situation that is happening in Burma today, and I have to say, mission accomplished.

One thing about Rambo IV is that every single character is involved in the action and almost every single character kills someone. Even the religious guy who claims “taking a life is never right” kills someone in the end. This is also the guy who says he will have to report Rambo for killing a few men at the beginning of the movie. I think he might have changed his mind about that. Rambo is, after all, the one who saved his bald ass and his girl.

This is the last of the Rambo movies so far, but don’t worry, a fifth one is in pre-production and will grace us with its presence sometime in the future. I don’t know if they can top the action in this one. Just to add a little perspective, in the extras on the DVD, it was said that they submitted what they thought was an NC-17 version and were prepared to tone it down a bit; however, it passed. You basically need balls of steel to watch this movie. Look deep down your trousers. Do you have what it takes?

Best Kill: Rambo is inside the Burmese camp, searching for the Americans. He follows a soldier taking the American women into a room to do bad things to her. Right as he is undoing his belt buckle, Rambo pops up behind him from out of no where. Rambo gets the guy in a head lock with his hand wrapped around his throat. You have no idea what’s happening at first. Then you see the blood dripping down onto the guy’s shirt. Then, Rambo rips the guy’s throat out with his bare hands. Now that’s what I call taking a ‘hands-on’ approach.

Best line: “Live for nothing. Or die for something.”

Guys getting killed (Bad guys): Burmese military

Amount of time before Rambo related action: ~ 19 mins

Best Explosion: In the middle of the jungle, there is an old world war bomb that never detonated. While running from the Burmese military (after the remaining soldiers stumble on the corpses of a few zillion of their dead comrades that Rambo took out the night before), Rambo sets up a mine on the bomb. He leads them there by tying a piece of the American woman’s shirt to the mine and then covering the mine with leaves. The Burmese dogs lead them to the shirt, confused the military picks it up and sets off the mine, also setting off the bomb. This explosion is so great that it makes when the Mothership in Independence Day blew up the White House look like a pile of pop rocks with Coca-Cola poured on it.

Rating: 5 exploding totalitarian dictators, out of 5.