RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II: Do We Get to Win This Time?

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) – Directed by George P. Cosmatos – Starring Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Charles Napier, Steven Berkoff, Julia Nickson, and Martin Kove.

When people tend to think of Rambo, it’s FIRST BLOOD, PART II that most often gets conjured up in the mind. It’s certainly the image that came to my mind – Rambo pulling the red cloth into a headband … the knife … the big machine gun on his arm, firing pornographically … all those arrows … explosions …

Gone from FIRST BLOOD is the psychological character study and in its place is a much more conventional action film that’s really kinda stupid.

And highly influential.

FIRST BLOOD PART II does not start out stupid, however. For the first half of the movie, it’s really not too bad. John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is breaking up rocks in a prison when Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) visits, offering a mission in exchange for a pardon. Rambo is, at first, reluctant to leave the prison. Trautman can’t really believe he’d rather stay in prison than get let out, but Rambo explains that “in here, at least I know where I stand.”

It’s a smart, psychologically driven answer, and it’s one of the few in the entire film.

Where Rambo gained sympathy in the first film in his constant rejection from normal society, the sequel barely attempts to get you to sympathize with him. Instead, it makes the audience complicit in all the violence and, more importantly, all of the damage done to the men who served in Vietnam. Colonel Trautman is still trying to help Rambo, but his help might end up doing more damage to his favored soldier. Trautman offers Rambo an assignment to go after POWs over in Nam, and you have to wonder at why he’s doing it. Trautman is never anything but in Rambo’s corner, yet he thinks it’s better for the obviously troubled young man to be sent back into the jungle rather than live the consistent, peaceful life in a prison labor camp.

It’s a bit like trying to help a coke addict by breaking them out of rehab and giving them a tray of coke, isn’t it?

PART II is more about violence, evidenced by the long list of war accomplishments that U.S. politician Marshall Murdock (Charles Napier) lists upon meeting him when he arrives in ‘Nam. Trautman is revealed as little more than the delivery man to get Rambo into Nam for him to go take pictures of what is supposed to be a POW camp. There’s a bit of subplot here between the military and the politicians, but the film draws Murdock far too simply for it to have any real traction. Napier is very good in PART II, but he’s playing a type, not a well-rounded person.

It’s admirable that Rambo is horrified at the idea of just being asked to take pictures instead of free any prisoners, but it’s also a forced bit of tension. What Murdock knows is that it’s supposed to be an empty camp. He doesn’t tell Rambo or Trautman this, because he’s a seedy politician jerking their chain. Murdock tries to bond with Rambo by telling him of his own service record, but Rambo recognizes that the politician is lying.

“You’re the only one I trust,” he tells Trautman, thus signalling to the audience that this is going to be a very simple morality play. There’s never any question whose side anyone is on, which just serves as the cinematic excuse to let Rambo go shoot as many people as he can in as many ways as he can.

On his way to the POW camp, he meets up with his guide, Co-Bao (Julia Nickson, who both went on to play Commander Sinclair’s girlfriend on Babylon 5 and marry David Soul), and then gets captured when Murdock orders the evac chopper to pull away and leave Rambo behind. I get that this is supposed to be the symbolic representation of a nation leaving their soldiers behind, but it’s rather clumsily executed. After getting captured by some Vietnames, the Russians show up for God knows what reason.

Well, I mean, obviously it’s to bring Rambo out of Vietnam and all its bad associations and into the contemporary Cold War, but again, it’s clumsily executed and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The Russians torture him and then try to kill him, but of course that doesn’t work because RAMBO III isn’t a ghost story.

After Rambo has defeated anybody and everybody, Trautman asks him what he wants. What he wants is something Trautman can’t snap his fingers and make happen: Rambo wants his country to love the soldiers as much as the soldiers love the nation.

From the moment that chopper leaves Rambo on the hill, FIRST BLOOD PART II starts to nosedive. It’s not that the action isn’t impressive, because there’s plenty of good shots of people getting shot and blown up and all that. It’s just kind of mindless to watch. Rambo might feel more at home in the jungle, but it’s brutal to watch. A coke addict might be happier snorting powder, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best thing for them. That’s what’s depressing about this film – the government has replaced ignoring Rambo for using him.

Despite the downer of the second half, this is still a film well worth watching. The violence is plentiful and not horribly executed, but if you like film, how can you never watch a movie this influential? It’s like FIRST BLOOD PART II and Die Hard because the Iliad and the Odyssey of 1980s action movies, as almost everything that came after them was a derivative of one of them.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS: The Hound Returns Meekly to the Kennel of Odin

The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) – Directed by Nicholas Corea – Starring Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, Steve Levitt, Eric Kramer, Charles Napier, Lee Purcell, and Jack Colvin.

Surprisingly, it’s the main selling point of THE INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS that proves to be its biggest weakness: the battles between Thor and the Hulk.

The Thor vs. Hulk battles have long been a staple of the comics, and were major high points in both the Avengers movie and the Hulk Vs. animated film. Yet here, in the TV-movie that continued the story of THE INCREDIBLE HULK TV series that had gone off the air six years earlier.

Here, however, it’s the Thor vs. Hulk battles (both against each other and the bad guys) that sink the narrative a bit.

RETURNS is still a solid outing, but the purpose of the movie has shifted. This is no longer a story about David Banner trying to rid himself of the Hulk as much as it is an opportunity to use the Hulk to get Thor onto the small screen.

When the movie feels like an excuse just to show Lou Ferrigno in green paint, growling and yelling, or when the Donald Blake (Steve Levitt)/Thor (Erik Kramer) subplot overtakes the David Banner (Bill Bixby)/Hulk (Ferrigno) angle, RETURNS falters, but when it focuses on the human characters, when it focuses on the Bannner/Blake relationship, or when old investigative reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin) starts poking around, RETURNS picks up.

The feeling I get when watching RETURNS is that NBC knew there was value in the Bill Bixby-Hulk franchise, but that the network wasn’t committed to the franchise for the sake of the franchise, but for what else it could do for the network. This was the ’80s, of course, and NBC had developed a fair number of action franchises (The A-Team, Knight Rider, Riptide, Hunter) and perhaps they wanted to attempt a new one with Thor. Perhaps that’s why much of the narrative focuses on the reason that many of the people watching were likely tuning in to see.

The Blake/Thor relationship is different from the comics. Instead of being a sickly doctor who pounds a wooden staff into the ground, Don Blake is a doctor who discovers Thor’s tomb and then they sort of co-exist. Don gets to keep walking around, but when he wants to he holds Thor’s hammer aloft, yells, “Odin!” and then Thor magically appears after a storm of bad CGI lightning. Blake gets to hang around so he and Thor can do an Odd Couple routine.

Did they think this would work? You can already see the strains this conception causes the characters, as every time Blake and Thor come to an understanding, Blake waits a scene and then goes back to being a whiny dick. While the Odd Couple relationship isn’t bad, it is limited because Blake has all of the power in the relationship, as he can send Thor packing any time he wants.

Unfortunately, RETURNS is rather let down by some mediocre action sequences. The key to my enjoyment of the Bixby Hulk is that David Banner is such a fascinating character and Bixby is such a committed actor to the role. Honestly, I’d place Bixby right alongside Tom Baker is his total commitment to making his character and his world real and believable.

During the first act of RETURNS, when Banner is committed to ridding himself of the Hulk (even after his alter ego hasn’t appeared in two years), only to be interrupted by the arrival of Donald Blake and his story of Thor, is solid. In this opening, the movie plays to its strengths: Banner’s commitment to the cause and Bixby’s earnest determination. Steve Levitt isn’t in Bixby’s class as an actor, but he manages to tell his story of finding Thor in an effective manner. It’s when Thor arrives and then causes enough internal strife in Banner that the Hulk appears that the narrative first comes off-track.

After this initial appearance, we get three subplots: Blake and Thor trying to make peace with each other, some Cajun thugs trying to ruin the company Banner works for, and Banner himself. It’s this third plot that disappears in the middle of the film, as RETURNS goes into “possible pilot” mode for Blake and Thor. The duo heads to a bar so Thor can drink and arm wrestle and grope biker women. During this time, Blake largely sits off to the side and watches, looking miserable.

Was this going to be the show? Thor wanting to have fun and Blake being a whiny babysitter? Yeah, it’s a shame that show didn’t get made …

Levitt and Kramer do their best to make the Blake/Thor dynamic work, but there’s just not a lot here in the script for them to work with. All it really does is keep us away from Banner, and when we do go back to the reason we’re here, Thor has more chemistry with him than he does with Blake.

The plot itself take a back seat to simply watching Thor, Blake, and Banner, and that’s a good decision because the plot sees some mobster’s helping a company man get his revenge on the company. Other than some really good scene chewing from Charles Napier (he actually says, “I gare-ron-tee” like he’s in a commercial for Ruffles Cajun Spice potato chips), this whole angle is bland and complete forgettable.

At the end, Thor and Hulk team up to stop seven people with guns and rescue Banner’s lady friend, and then Banner walks away sadly because he’s contractually obligated to walk away beneath sad piano music as much as possible.

RETURNS isn’t a horrible TV movie, at all, and it’s nice to see an attempt at doing a live-action Thor, even if it doesn’t really look like an idea that could have sustained itself over a season. I mentioned earlier a few of the NBC action shows that found success, but RETURNS was put on the air in 1988, at the end of NBC’s run as an action network. They were still trying, of course, but shows like Stingray didn’t find the same success, and those older shows were either already gone or on their way out. RETURNS didn’t launch a new Thor TV program, but it was the first of three new INCREDIBLE HULK movies. It’s nice to see Bixby and Ferrigno back in the saddle, again – I just wish this movie had as much interest in them as me.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: You’re Not More Than One Generation From Poor White Trash, Are You?

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – Directed by Jonathan Demme – Starring Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Brooke Smith, Frankie Faison, Tracey Walter, Charles Napier, Roger Corman, Daniel von Bargen, and Chris Isaak.

When you take a look at a heralded movie like THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS 21 years after its release, the only way you’re going to bring something new to the table is if you offer a dramatic reassessment of the film. Like if I said, “You know, in hindsight, LAMBS is good, but it’s not that good. There’s some structural issues and the acting isn’t all that great and did it really deserve to win the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay? No. No, it didn’t.”

Well, I’m not going to say that. Jonathan Demme’s THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is an extraordinarily good movie, representing the absolute best in dramatic storytelling. LAMBS is every bit as brilliant now as it was back in 1991, and while I generally don’t give a flip about awards, if we’re going to have them, it’s films like LAMBS that deserve to be recognized.

The FBI is after a serial killer nicknamed “Buffalo Bill” (Ted Levine), who likes to kidnap women and then skin them before dumping the body in the river, and to assist in the investigation, Agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) recruits trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) to interview imprisoned serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to see if he can help with the investigation. It’s a bit more complicated than that as Crawford doesn’t tell Starling exactly why he’s sending her in to interview Lecter because he doesn’t want Lecter to be able to pull that information from her brain. Lecter is, of course, the smartest guy in the movie, but it’s not like everyone else is a big dummy, and one of the joys in watching LAMBS is how smart people manipulate other smart people in order to attempt to get what they want.

For all of the much-deserved praised heaped on Hopkins and Lecter, Foster and Starling are every bit as fantastic. Starling is one of the most wonderfully well-rounded characters you’ll find, and just like Lecter, she is full of contradictions. Still a trainee, Starling has limited field experience and while she’s brave, she’s also perfectly frightened at times. When we see her freak out after a patient in the psych ward tosses his ejaculate at her face and then cry when she gets to her car, it makes the scenes where she forces her way into a storage shed stronger. Foster’s Starling proves you can be a strong, independent woman and still be less than perfect and afraid.

LAMBS employs a rather unique double narrative strategy as the Lecter and Buffalo Bill plots only brush up against one another; Starling has one plot going with the hunt for Bill and another going with her developing relationship with Lecter. Crawford wants Bill’s insight, but it’s not like he’s bringing Lecter in to for a Marvel Team-Up. Crawford and Lecter have an antagonistic relationship, so the FBI man uses the trainee to be his go-between. The real story of LAMBS is the rise of Clarice Starling, but it’s not the kind of arc where she rises from nothing to everything, but rather where she simply proves she can play her part and help solve the case.

I really dig that about LAMBS. Demme and his team see no need to push things to artificially-elevated levels in LAMBS. This is a simple story about a manhunt for a kidnapped girl who’s got a few days to live before her kidnapper kills her. There’s a natural urgency to the film that doesn’t need fancy camera tricks or editing to ratchet up the intensity of the situation. Combine this with the almost diversionary chats between Lecter and Starling and LAMBS is actually a very enjoyable film about a very horrible situation.

It’s the interviews between Lecter and Starling that truly make LAMBS a special film. Lecter revels in the discussion, which allows him to use his considerable brain power to slice apart people psychologically. The scripts best moments are when Starling is trying to get answers from Lecter about Bill and Lecter is trying to dig into Starling’s past. It’s a masterful set-up and execution as Lecter is always in control, even when he’s trapped behind bars and Starling is struggling to swim even when she can barely keep her head above water. Lecter has the freedom of knowing what he’s capable of doing, and Starling is hampered by not knowing.

Lecter digs into Starling’s past in a manner that’s psychologically aggressive, using fear and shame to dig the truth out of her. He mocks her accent, mocks her attire, questions her relationship with Crawford, and pushes her to dredge up all the worst aspects of her life. Lecter’s psychological deconstruction of Starling is the best part of the movie and largely relegates the manhunt to the background. Even during the latter stages of the film, after Lecter has escaped from containment and all-but-disappeared from the movie, his presence resonates.

As Starling gets information piecemealed out to her by Lecter, the investigation continues on its way. They realize Bill keeps the women he kidnaps alive for three days so he can starve them out a bit. He wants their skin to make himself a new flesh suit because he’s f*cking crazy.

LAMBS works by highlighting one-on-one interpersonal relationships: Starling and Lecter, Starling and Crawford, Lecter and Dr. Chilton (Anthony Heald), and Bill and his latest kidnapped victim, Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith). While there are other characters in the film, it’s these four relationships that continually spin through the movie. It’s Bill who gets the best line in the movie, too. For all the verbal goodness that comes out of Lecter’s mouth, it’s Bill’s, “Put the f*cking lotion in the basket!” exclamation that I always feel like quoting for days afterward. (Not that I can; it doesn’t really work when you’re stuck in an administrative meeting to tell the idiot at the other end of the table to shut up and put the f*cking lotion in the basket. You can think it, but you can’t say it.)

Ted Levine’s performance as Bill is incredibly memorable for its outlandishness, just as Glenn’s performance as Crawford is memorable for its restraint. There’s a whole host of known actors in smaller roles peppered throughout LAMBS, too: Frankie Faison as Barney, a worker at the original hospital that holds Lecter captive; Charles Napier as a cop that Lecter murders; Roger Corman as an FBI director that gives Crawford a stern talking to; and Daniel von Bargen and Chris Isaak as members of the police team that attempts (and fails) to keep an escaped Lecter contained.

In the end, though, this is Jodie Foster’s movie. Tough and vulnerable, assured and frightened, Foster gives the performance of her career as Clarice Starling. As great as Hopkins is (and this is the performance of his career, too), it’s Foster that carries LAMBS. We might be fascinated by the monster, but it’s the protagonist who takes us home.

I wonder if THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS’ legacy hasn’t been a tad tarnished in some people’s eyes by all the craptacular sequels that followed. To this day, it’s the non-Hopkins film, Michael Mann’s Manhunter with Brian Cox as Hannibal “Lektor,” that comes closest to matching LAMBS’ brilliance. Bad sequels can’t really tarnish an original film, of course, just our perceptions of that film. If that’s happened to you with LAMBS, just go ahead and pop it in the DVD player. It won’t take long for you to remember its cinematic greatness.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is, quite simply, an American masterpiece.