First Blood - David Morrell

The sheriff of a small Kentucky town spots a long-haired guy trying to hitch a ride. The sheriff gets him to the edge of town, only to have the 'kid', turn around and walk right back into town to get some food. So the sheriff drives him out of town again, advising the kid to keep walking this time. Instead the kid walks back into town, at which point the sheriff arrests him. Things go downhill from there.

This is the novel the first Rambo movie is based on. I had heard from somewhere - probably my dad - it wasn't as slanted in favor of Rambo as the film. Which is true. While Morrell's version of Rambo is more talkative than Stallone - a smartass, frankly, though it's understandable, when they ask dumb questions  - Morrell spends a lot of time on both Rambo and Sheriff Teasle's internal monologues.

Rambo's take the form of arguments with himself. The part of him that knows he could have just kept walking, or that he could defuse this situation by just answering some questions, or explaining himself more fully. And the other part, that kept count of all the times local law enforcement decide they don't like him and run him out, and is tired of being pushed around. When asked why he carries matches if he said he doesn't smoke, he explains they're for fires for cooking, but doesn't explain he is fully capable of hunting for food when pressed on what he's cooking if he admits he doesn't have money to buy food.  Tired of the smart remarks about his long hair, or his beard. Especially when he knows full well what he can do to these country cops, and is actually a little eager to do it.

Teasle's thoughts tend to be more focused on his past, specifically his mistakes. He's made a lot of them, with his wife and with the man who was like a second father to him. He makes more dealing with this kid, and a lot of people die as a result. So he replays old conversations, times he lost his temper when he shouldn't have, when he let pride and ego get the best of him, only to find out he was not at all prepared for what he unleashed.

Because this version of Rambo is a lot less merciful than the film version. When the few remaining cops decide it's time to retreat, Rambo opts to hunt them down like the Predator rather than continue with his planned escape. Another time where he argues with himself about the decision and why he's making it. Shouldn't he use the storm and lack of pursuit, the time lag before Teasle gets somewhere he can communicate, to cover some ground towards Mexico? Well, yes, but he wants to prove something. Or maybe he just wants some action.

It's a situation where each guy ends up making choices out of some desire to assert themselves, their superiority, only to regret it bitterly once they calm down. By then, it's too late to break things off. Rambo's got too many people after them, and Teasle's gotten too many people killed to just sit back and let the state police, or this Trautmann, handle it. There is a part, after Rambo escapes the old mine, where Teasle has some dream vision of Rambo, creeping through an old junkyard. Which is actually what Rambo did. That strains credulity, since Teasle has no way of knowing about the old mine or where there might be other exits from the cave system in links with. A semi-mystical connection between the too was an overreach by Morrell.

The final confrontation, where Teasle has finally started to figure out how Rambo thinks, how Rambo thinks he thinks and reacts, and manages to counter it, that worked a lot better.

'You don't even like this place. It doesn't even interest you. If Teasle hadn't picked you up, you would have gone straight through on your own.

That doesn't make a difference.'