Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: Sylvester Stallone in one of his cult roles.
In 1976, Rocky won Best Picture at the Oscars. Overnight, Sylvester Stallone , screenwriter and main performer, is propelled to the rank of international star. This success pushed the director Ted Kotcheff to offer him, in 1982, to be the headliner of another action film that would mark his career: Rambo .
Adapted from the novel The First Blood by David Morrell , which appeared ten years earlier, the screenplay deals with the difficult reintegration of Vietnam War veterans into a hippie and moralistic America formulating harsh criticism of them.
The hero, John Rambo, is described there as a berserk psychopath and a merciless killer. Sylvester Stallone rewrites him under a different prism to make him a more nuanced character: a victim of the army and society.
Anti-war pamphlet, Rambo is worth as much for the performance of Stallone (who incidentally broke three ribs during the scene where he jumps into a ravine) as for the intelligence of his subject. Like Journey to the End of Hell or Apocalypse Now , the film dares to talk about the disastrous effects of the Vietnam War on veterans.
Unlike the following opuses, which are pure entertainment , this first episode of the adventures of Rambo reflects an America in the grip of disenchantment.
Rambo by Ted Kotcheff with Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy…