There’s that tagline from Jaws 2 (1978) – “just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” or from The Godfather: Part III (1990) – “just when I thought I was out … they pull me back in”; both describe the irresistible force that causes actors and studios to go back and revisit their most iconic roles and biggest hits in hopes of reliving their glory days and recapturing the monumental money that Hollywood’s action blockbusters can garner.  Since I last pondered this subject, Sylvester Stallone reprised his role as boxer Rocky Balboa (2006) after sixteen years, Live Free and Die Hard (2007) enabled Bruce Willis to play his indomitable John McClane for a fourth time after a 12 year absence, and Harrison Ford’s return to his most recognizable character after 19 years – as archeologist adventurer Indiana Jones – promises to challenge Memorial Day weekend box office records this spring.  But the inspiration for this article is Stallone’s latest effort to revive the long thought dead Vietnam warrior hero whose surname happens to be pronounced like my own.

I actually went to see First Blood (1982) with a Green Beret veteran friend (several years older than me) when I was in college.  He had been in the Special Forces and used to wear one of those t-shirts that said “Join the Army: Travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.”  The movie was actually pretty good – a different take on the returning Vietnam vet dramas of the late 1970’s – and its cast was anchored by a couple of solid actors: Richard Crenna and the underrated Brian Dennehy (speaking of actors that have been snubbed by the Academy).  Based on the novel by David Morrell, the screenplay was written by a couple of Emmy award winning writers (Michael Kozoll & William Sackheim) and Stallone; Canadian Ted Kotcheff (it was filmed in British Columbia) directed it.  If one believes what is found in the trivia section of IMDb.com, there had been some bigger and surprisingly unusual names attached to the project.

In any case, this first story in the series opens with a man (Stallone) traveling on foot alongside an empty roadway in the Pacific Northwest.  He’s just about to enter a small town when the local sheriff (Dennehy) spots him, takes a look at his long hair and worn clothing, and decides that this ‘drifter’ is not the type of person he wants in his community.  So Sheriff Teasle gives him a lift straight out of town.  The man decides he hasn’t done anything wrong; hungry and headstrong, he begins walking back towards town.  When Teasle sees him in his rearview mirror, the tough sheriff decides to arrest him for vagrancy and resisting arrest.  When the man is treated roughly by Teasle’s deputies (David Caruso among them), his mental images of past abuse at the hands of the North Vietnamese cloud his present reality and he strikes back at his captors and escapes into the nearby hills.  The drama then becomes a battle of wills between the man that just wants to be left alone and the determined Sheriff Teasle; he has no idea who he’s been dealing with until Colonel Trautman (Crenna) arrives and says “I hear you have one of my boys”.  At this point, Teasle learns that his drifter is actually John Rambo, a Special Forces Green Beret and Medal of Honor winner that was trained to be an efficient killing machine who’s very much at home surviving in the woods.  Besides the surreal feeling that I had because I was sitting in the theater next to a former Special Forces Green Beret, my ears perked up when I heard that this movie’s character’s name sounded like my own, and I recalled the only other time that that had happened (during the Mel Brooks comedy released the previous year – The History of the World: Part I (1981) – in which a female character’s surname, spelled Rimbaud, was pronounced the same.

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the theater, or to make a dinner reservation, or to leave a voicemail message for someone who doesn’t know me, my last name is part of the pop culture lexicon once again.  It had been twenty years since the last Rambo movie was released, and 23 years since the first sequel used the character’s name in its title.  I had foolishly thought that the guy was too old (Stallone turned 60 in 2006) to use it again, that my family’s name had finally lost its notoriety, but no.  I should have known better than to underestimate the greed of Hollywood.  Besides the age (e.g. youth) of its star(s), the successful continuation of an action movie series depends upon the film-makers ability to invent ever more creative ways to replicate those elements of its formula that its readymade audience expects.  In the case of Rambo, it’s about putting a character that would rather remain a loner – intentionally disconnected from a society that he no longer trusts, understands nor can relate to – in a situation where he’s pushed and essentially forced to fight (or fight back); his advanced training and experience enables him to turn the tables on his pursuers, switch from being the prey to the hunter, and (after the first movie) become motivated by his personal code of morality to rescue others who are weaker and unable to save themselves.  Because of this, and even though (in each subsequent film) Rambo kills an ever increasing number of one dimensional ‘bad guys’, he’s a sympathetic character (or perhaps caricature) that we want to ‘win’.  It is in the violence that Rambo uses to exact revenge and defeat his enemies where this series’ creativity is found.

Ironically (or maybe not so much), the first and last films featuring each of the two iconic action hero movie characters that Stallone established throughout the 1970’s and 80’s are his top rated movies among IMDb.com voters (and the only four that rate higher than a ‘7’) at the time of this posting:

1. (8.00) – Rocky (1976)
2. (7.89) – Rambo (2008) – the third sequel
3. (7.50) – Rocky Balboa (2006) – the fifth sequel
4. (7.20) – First Blood (1982)

But while I’ll agree that his latest movie is an above average entry in the genre (and series), I certainly do not think that it warrants a nearly equivalent rating to the inspirational Academy Award winning Best Picture that (like its title character almost did) upset the competition and made Stallone a star.

Lastly, since the Governor of California has also seen his sixtieth birthday come to pass (and Linda Hamilton her fiftieth), perhaps we’ve seen the last of Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator (he returned to the role after 12 years in 2003 for the third in that series), but some of James Cameron’s characters live on in television’s “Sarah Connor Chronicles” and a fourth big screen offering that’s possible in 2009.

BTW, Happy 50^th Birthday to another ‘Rambo’ today!