First Blood

For the David Morrell novel, see First Blood (book). For the rock band, see First Blood (band)

First Blood
Theatrical poster for First Blood
Directed by	Ted Kotcheff
Written by	Novel: David Morrell Screenplay: Michael Kozoll William Sackheim Sylvester Stallone
Produced by	Buzz Feitshans
Starring	Sylvester Stallone Richard Crenna Brian Dennehy David Caruso Jack Starrett
Cinematography	Andrew Laszlo
Edited by	Joan E. Chapman
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	Orion Pictures Corporation
Release dates	October 22, 1982
Running time	97 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	US$14 million

First Blood (aka Rambo: First Blood) is the first film featuring the character of troubled Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. It starred Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, Brian Dennehy as Sheriff Will Teasle, and Richard Crenna as Col. Samuel Trautman.

Based on a 1972 David Morrell book of the same name, the film (which differs from the book in many areas) was directed by Ted Kotcheff, produced by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna, and released on Friday, October 22, 1982.

Taglines:

• This time he's fighting for his life.
• A one man war.

Plot

File:Rambo-1.jpg

Sylvester Stallone as mentally unstable, Vietnam war vet, John J. Rambo.

The film centers on John Rambo, a former member of the US Army's Green Berets (an elite Special Forces unit) who fought in Vietnam and was a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions there. Rambo has difficulty adjusting to civilian life and wanders the country as a drifter. The film begins as he is seeking out his friend Delmore Barry, apparently the only other Special Forces member from his unit to make it out of Vietnam alive.

Rambo finds out from Barry's widow that he died from cancer due to Agent Orange exposure, and she is clearly very upset that she lost the man she loved and is also left to eke out a meager existence on her own. Rambo, in an attempt to offer some cold comfort to her, gives her the photograph of her husband's unit. This also hurts Rambo deeply as now he realizes that he is the last of his unit. Left to continue drifting, Rambo runs afoul of Will Teasle, the sheriff of a small Washington State mountain resort town called Hope (set in Hope, WA. - filmed in Hope, British Columbia). Teasle drives Rambo out of town while telling him the people of Hope don't appreciate people of his kind: drifters. Rambo asks for a place to eat, but Teasle refuses him courtesy in the town. Rambo is dropped outside of town but heads back, refusing to be pushed out. Teasle forcefully stops and arrests Rambo for vagrancy, resisting arrest, and carrying a concealed weapon, a large survival knife, which he claims is for hunting.

Teasle brings Rambo back to the station, where he is beaten by Art Gault, the sheriff's sadistic head deputy. Some of the officers are sympathetic to Rambo, but are also ignorant or meek. During the beatings, Rambo has flashbacks to his time as a prisoner of war. The sight of a straight razor, as the deputies attempt to shave him, brings to Rambo's mind horrible torture when he was a POW and causes Rambo to panic violently. He disables the officers with nothing but his hands, escapes the police station with his knife, and heads into the mountains on a stolen motorcycle. Teasle gives pursuit in his police car, which is overturned after an extended chase. Rambo flees into the hills, wearing only his jeans, shoes and a tank-top, useless in fending off the cold weather. Rambo quickly improvises cold weather gear with items he finds at remains of a construction site.

The deputies go after Rambo on foot, aided by a pack of Dobermans, forcing him to climb down a steep cliff overlooking a river gorge to elude capture. Deputy Gault, ignoring Teasle's orders to capture Rambo alive, attempts to murder him from a helicopter while he is trapped on a ledge, unseen by the other deputies. Rambo drops into a mass of trees, badly cutting himself, and is cornered by the helicopter again. He throws a rock at it, causing it to pitch heavily and drop Gault into the gorge, killing him. Deputy Mitch (David Caruso) reasons with Teasle that Gault might have earned his fate due to his abusive behavior, but Teasle furiously ignores this and vows to avenge his life-long friend's death.

Teasle leads his deputies into the woods in an attempt to capture Rambo. The deputies are inexperienced and fight amongst themselves, making them easy targets. Rambo kills the Dobermans and disables the deputies using guerrilla war tactics, severely wounding but not killing them. Rambo then confronts Teasle, knife to his throat. He threatens chaos should he be pursued again: "In town you're the law, out here it's me. I could have killed all of them. I could have killed you. Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go. Let it go."

Rambo then leaves suddenly. Teasle is clearly shaken, but refuses to give in. He calls in the National Guard and the State Police. A TV broadcast of the incident gets the attention of Rambo's former commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), who warns the searchers that trying to capture Rambo is suicidal; his combat training and experience make him far better than anyone they have. Trautman's suggests letting Rambo go; they can probably pick him up working at a car wash and nobody else will get hurt. Teasle dismisses that advice, claiming that Trautman was only sent by the Pentagon to save face.

When the National Guard unit finds Rambo holed up in a mine entrance, they are afraid to go after him and take the easy way out- firing a M72 LAW (shoulder-fired rocket launcher) and collapsing the mine. Teasle is furious, as he wanted Rambo alive, but eventually accepts that his nemesis is dead. Unbeknownst to his pursuers, Rambo survives the explosion and cave-in. He crawls through tunnels in the mine, struggling to keep his torch burning and fighting rabid rats. Eventually he finds an exit near a main road. Rambo then steals an Army truck with an M60 Machine gun from the National Guardsmen and returns to Hope. Rambo then takes out his frustration on Teasle's "quiet little town" by destroying a gas station, a local surplus store, and a sporting gun shop.

Trautman talks to Teasle for the final time, advising him to give up his mania of stopping Rambo. Teasle staunchly refuses, saying he's not afraid of his inevitable death. Trautman candidly tells him that it's clear which of them has any chance at survival, but not because Trautman is better then Rambo; the simple fact that Rambo trusts him is the only advantage he needs. Teasle is stunned at this callousness, but says that nothing will take "his town" away from him. He himself hides on the roof, hoping to catch Rambo running around. Rambo thwarts this by destroying power lines and cutting all the lights in the town, making it impossible for Teasle to catch Rambo.

Rambo spots Teasle on the roof. After destroying the station, he manages to badly wound the sheriff and bring him down through a skylight. Teasle curses Rambo with what he thinks will be his final words. Meanwhile, the state police have surrounded the building, cutting off every way out. Rambo is about to finish what he's started when Colonel Trautman appears and tells him that his mini-war is over; there's no hope of escaping alive, saying "It's Over Johnny. It's Over." Rambo responds with, "Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war. You asked me, I didn't ask you!" He goes on to talk of the people protesting him at the airport. He then rages about how what meant something in the war - honor and loyalty - means nothing in the real world. He breaks down sobbing and tells a story about his friend Danforth who was blown to pieces in a Saigon bar by a shoe shining boy. He exclaims, "I can't get it out of my head. Seven years. Every day I have this. Sometimes I wake up and don't know where I am. I don't talk to anybody. Sometimes a day. Sometimes a week. I can't put it out of my mind." With no purpose left, Rambo gives himself up to the authorities.

Adaptation issues

Various screenplays adapted from Morrell's book had been pitched to studios in the years since its publication, but it was only when Stallone, who at the time had limited success outside of the Rocky franchise (most of his non-Rocky films either barely broke even or were flops altogether), decided to become involved with the project that it was finally brought into production.

Stallone’s star power after the success of the Rocky films enabled him to suggest changes to the script, to make the character of John Rambo more sympathetic. While Morrell's book has the Rambo character kill many of his pursuers, in the movie version, Rambo does not directly cause the death of any police or national guardsmen.

Prior to Stallone taking the role, Steve McQueen was interested in the role. Just before shooting began, Kirk Douglas quit the role of Col. Trautman over a script dispute; Douglas wanted the film to end as the book did, with the death of the Rambo character. Richard Crenna was quickly hired as a replacement; the role of Trautman became the veteran character actor's most famous role. A suicide scene was filmed, but ultimately, Kotcheff and Stallone opted to have Rambo turn himself in at Trautman's urging.

Critics' views

The film received generally favorable reviews.

Film reviewer Chuck O'Leary lauds First Blood as “...a gripping survival adventure with an emotional ending that's downright moving.” O’Leary also praises composer Jerry Goldsmith’s “excellent musical score." BBC film critic Almar Haflidason notes that Stallone’s training in survival skills and hand-to-hand combat “...helped give the film such a raw and authentic edge that excited the audiences of the time.”

Film reviewer Brian Webster, from the Apollo film site, calls First Blood “...an embarrassingly sloppy production” with a weak script. Jeremiah Kipp had a more positive view of the film, which he gave two stars out of four. While Kipp criticized some of the “comic book” dialogue and “macho...mindless escapism” of the film, he acknowledges that it also “...reflect[ed] a new compassion towards traumatized veterans of the Vietnam conflict. As well, Kipp praised Stallone’s acting in the finale, stating that the actor ”...hits his climactic breakdown monologue out of the park” with a performance that was “sweet and moving and mildly incomprehensible.”

In general, the film was criticized by many at the time for its violent scenes and for its seeming glorification of weapons (such as the M60 which featured prominently in advertising). Interestingly, though, its violence and gore pales in comparison to modern day action and war films (or even current prime time TV dramas), with only one on screen death, a possible three other deaths only suggested by a car crash and a handful of non-lethal attacks.

Production

First Blood, which had a modest shooting budget of $14 million, became a major hit, going on to earn an estimated $47 million in North America and $78 million overseas. This success helped to solidify Stallone's career. First Blood also spawned two sequels, with a fourth film expected to be released in 2008.

The town scenes in the movie were shot in Hope, British Columbia, Canada. The rest of the movie was shot in Golden Ears Provincial Park.

The Rambo series

Main article: Rambo

John Rambo's iconic stature was not attained until the popular sequel, Rambo: First Blood Part II was released in 1985. Often viewed as much more of an action film than a drama, as the original had been, Rambo was panned by most critics. But that did not stop the film from being the second-highest grossing film of the year, trailing only Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future [1]. President Ronald Reagan set off a minor controversy when he admitted he admired Rambo (thus gaining a nickname "Ronbo"). . A fourth Rambo film, John Rambo is scheduled for a mid-2008 release.

DVD

Author David Morrell recorded an audio commentary track for the First Blood Special Edition DVD released in 2002.

Actor Sylvester Stallone recorded an audio commentary track for the First Blood Ultimate Edition DVD released in 2004. This edition also includes a "never-before-seen" alternate ending in which Rambo commits suicide. This edition was also released on Blu-ray by Lionsgate.

An HD DVD of First Blood was released in the UK by Momentum Pictures in April 2007.

See also

• Police brutality
• Vietnam veteran
• Combat stress reaction
• Survivalism

External links

• Sylvester Stallone Official Website
• First Blood at IMDb
• DVD Comparison
• Detailed synopsis of First Blood at moviecheat.com
• [2]Official Photo scan Rambo First blood