But here is the deep cut: The film is prophetic for the wrong reasons. It shows Rambo fighting an unwinnable guerilla war in a cave-riddled desert, relying on local tribesmen who betray and help him in equal measure. Fast forward 15 years. The U.S. would be in the exact same position as the Soviets—fighting the grandchildren of the Mujahideen Rambo just armed.
Stallone, by this point, had become a cartoon of himself. His chest is waxed. His muscles have muscles. His dialogue is grunts and aphorisms ("To survive a war, you gotta become war"). Yet, there is a melancholy here that Stallone accidentally captures. Rambo is a dinosaur. The Soviet Union would collapse three years later. The "gallant people of Afghanistan" would descend into civil war.
Rambo III is a bad movie if you want realism. It is a troubling movie if you want moral clarity. But it is a if you want to understand the delusional optimism of the late Cold War.
If you divorce the politics from the craft, director Peter MacDonald (a veteran second-unit director on Return of the Jedi ) understands the geometry of 80s action.
But here is the deep cut: The film is prophetic for the wrong reasons. It shows Rambo fighting an unwinnable guerilla war in a cave-riddled desert, relying on local tribesmen who betray and help him in equal measure. Fast forward 15 years. The U.S. would be in the exact same position as the Soviets—fighting the grandchildren of the Mujahideen Rambo just armed.
Stallone, by this point, had become a cartoon of himself. His chest is waxed. His muscles have muscles. His dialogue is grunts and aphorisms ("To survive a war, you gotta become war"). Yet, there is a melancholy here that Stallone accidentally captures. Rambo is a dinosaur. The Soviet Union would collapse three years later. The "gallant people of Afghanistan" would descend into civil war.
Rambo III is a bad movie if you want realism. It is a troubling movie if you want moral clarity. But it is a if you want to understand the delusional optimism of the late Cold War.
If you divorce the politics from the craft, director Peter MacDonald (a veteran second-unit director on Return of the Jedi ) understands the geometry of 80s action.