Some Ramblings About Rambo

Hi everybody. First day of the Cape Comic Con in the books, and my primary regret was not bringing more money. That's why we have tomorrow, though. Thursday night (or ealy Friday morning depending on how you look at it), I came across Rambo from a couple years ago. I'm not sure I understand Rambo's arc in the movie.

OK, he's living in a village on the river in a jungle, has generally given up on hope. He's agrees to ferry some people who believe they can make a difference in Burma, then goes along with the mercs hired to rescue them when the hopeful people run into trouble. Cue Rambo killing a whole lot of people. After all that, he goes back to Arizona where he's from, to his father's home to see what's changed/start anew, something like similar. I wasn't completely clear on it.

There was a part earlier where he's being haunted by scenes and conversations from the earlier movies, including that colonel telling him he'll never know peace until he comes to grips with what he is. I think I'm supposed to interpret his going to save those folks and killing all those bad soldiers as coming to grips with what he is. Which would suggest he's a killing machine, albeit one who can possibly help some people by killing those who would harm them. If that's accurate, I can understand his reluctance to face it, because that would make him the Punisher more or less, and being Frank Castle isn't something one should strive for.

Part of my problem is I don't see much having been accomplished. He and the mercs saved a couple of people, and killed dozens (hundreds?) in the process, but has it helped anything? The commanding officer was bad news, but he's probably not unique, so the larger problem persists. Even if he was the leader, the source of all the killing, raping, torture, cruelty on that side of things, the man without whom, his forces will fall into disarray, who is to say the rebels, if they seize control, won't be just as cruel right back? At the beginning of the film, Rambo was arguing with the one humanitarian about whether anything changes in this world. I don't know that much of anything has by the end of the movie. The doctor is perhaps a bit less self-righteous having clubbed a man to death with a rock, and Rambo has apparently reached enough peace with his past to go back home, but in the larger sense, things seem much the same.