Thomas Burton’s World

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

RAMBO (2008)
☆☆☆☆ Stars (out of 5 stars)

Sylvester Stallone outdid himself this time. I really liked this movie and yet came away slightly disillusioned at the same time. An aging John Rambo is still just as surly as ever. It appears he’s learned to live with himself after so many years.

Living in Northern Thailand, he supports himself by hunting snakes used in the tourist shows and by running a boat up the river. He allows himself to be talked into taking some missionaries and their supplies into Burma (Myanmar) upriver. He refuses at first and then relents when a female missionary named Sarah convinces him they are going to get there one way or the other.

After killing some river pirates to save Sarah, he delivers the missionaries to a local guide inside Burma. They indicate they’ll return overland and won’t need him to pick them back up. In typical fashion, the missionaries get captured by the military inside Burma and don’t show up when expected.

Once again, Rambo is enlisted to go upriver. This time, it’s to deliver some mercenaries being paid to extract the captured missionaries back to safety. Rambo takes them upriver to the same spot he dropped off the missionaries. As he readies himself to go along and help, the leader of the mercenaries tells him he’s not welcome to tag along. In his usual fashion, he tags along without their knowledge.

They find the Karen village the military obliterated in the attack during which they captured the missionaries. With the carnage still evident, the Burmese military shows up again. This time to torture and kill some more Karen tribes people. Watching this proves too much for Rambo. He shoots several of the soldiers with his bow and the mercenaries end up involved as well. One of the mercenaries remarks “Who is that guy?”. Indeed.

Now it’s a race against time to find and save the missionaries. The scenes from here on out get more bloody and more gruesome. In fact, as hardened as I am to the usual blood and guts in most movies of this type, I almost had to turn away. This movie is not for the faint of heart. My wife covered her eyes and turned away several times.

In the end, Rambo wins saving a couple missionaries along with a couple mercenaries.

The interesting twist right at the end leaves me wondering if another movie will be forthcoming or if John Rambo really has come home and will find peace at last.

I give this movie 4 stars. I can’t recommend this one to kids under the age of 16 nor should you go to this movie if you have a weak stomach. It’s graphic and bloody. Then again, so is this area of Burma.

The sad part is, the Burmese military government does indeed persecute and kill the Karen tribe among others. If nothing else, this movie hopefully will help raise awareness among people previously unaware. The Burmese military government has banned this movie.