Rambo 4

Rambo 4 is written and directed by Stallone, who’s wringing the last drops of headband sweat out of the second of his major franchises. After the sob story that was Rocky Balboa, he’s followed it with the imaginatively-named John Rambo. Rambo’s back and he’s still not a fan of being pushed. Not by inbred sheriffs, not by the Commies, and this time not by Burmese drug-manufacturing, Christian-kidnapping, young boy-buggering dictators.

The plot’s thinner and more see-through than a separated sheet of toilet paper that’s been dipped in water. Stallone’s performance is really pushing “special needs” and his diction’s just gone completely. I’m surprised it doesn’t include subtitles.

However, the action sequences (about half the film’s length) are about the goriest battle scenes I’ve seen since Saving Private Ryan. Obviously, as this film’s not “educational” or “historic” it gets a higher rating. And a jail term of 5 years for watching it, if you’re a citizen of Myanmar. I mean, it’s a bad film but it’s hardly criminal.

The stereotypes are all there. Thai people who play with snakes. Nice village people who run around and die. Bad soldiers who kill people for ***** and giggles. An evil warlord who never fires a shot, but wears sunglasses and smokes a cigarette as he watches his minions do all the work for him.

Oh, and just for good measure we have a scene which implies he shags teenage boys up the bumhole. In case he’s not evil enough for committing genocide.

The climactic scene where Rambo kills him is about the cheesiest thing I’ve seen on a video screen. Seriously, it could have been filmed in Glorious Gorgonzola-vision. Wallace and Gromit would be drooling over it. It’s so gut-wrenchingly awful that it’s as if I’d stepped through a dimensional warp and I was watching a parody of the self-same film I was currently viewing. In fact, it’s so bad that Weird Al’s Rambo piss-take scene from UHF is completely bland in comparison.

But somehow, I don’t know how, I watched the whole thing. Time passed. I stayed awake (it was late and I was tired) and I got to the end thinking “I could watch that again” though preferably with Dolby Surround and a bigger screen than my laptop. It’s just so bad it’s in the “few beers and some crisps” pile for another time.

Although what, I think, edged it was watching it in Myanmar. Where it’s banned. And yet everyone I’ve talked to has seen it.