When did John Rambo get a 401K? No, I genuinely wish to know. Was it drifting in the backwoods while tangling with the local law? Was it the years he spent in the jungles of Vietnam or the years he spent in the caves of Afghanistan? Lemme put it this way: did Rambo ever strike you as the kind of guy who invests in his future? No? Then how does old Rambo own a horse ranch in Arizona?
I don’t remember much from the Rambos I’ve seen, but this version doesn’t quite jibe. I suppose what’s important to remember is that Rambo is really good at killing foreigners. That’s all you need to know.
While puzzling the finance angle, we get to visit the ranch itself where “Uncle John” (Sylvester Stallone) tends to headstrong teen Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal) and an old woman who doesn’t matter. Surrounding the farm are underground tunnels Rambo has built for fun to remind him of the good-ole-days as a Nam POW. Rambo actually does have flashbacks while visiting his tunnels. I suppose this is the positive side of PTSD we hear so much about.
Gabrielle is has tracked down the address of her birth father in Mexico. Rambo advises strongly that she not seek him out … cuz his life choices worked out so well, I guess. Of course, she does anyway, and within hours, literally, she is dissed by birth dad and sold into sex slavery. Geez, this is worse than a Taken film. I mean, we’ve seen some pretty xenophobic crap this year in films like Miss Bala and Angel Has Fallen, but nobody has gone “full Trump” until now.
Rambo follows Gabrielle’s trail to Mexico, where, no kidding, he physically breaks a dude’s collar bone by squeezing, treating a mob flunkee like the Thanksgiving turkey wishbone. This isn’t the first time in the film one might be reminded of the villain from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Then after a healthy ten seconds of angry surveillance, he knows all he needs to know. Next thing, Rambo has gone to war with an entire drug/prostitution cartel which leads back to the ranch, now gussied up Home Alone style for the intruders.
Passing the border between countries? No problem. Carrying weapons while you do it? Even less of an issue. Get a tight shot on that border wall, boys … one mile in the can, 1,999 to go.
If you’ve seen this film and gotten into it, “Yeah! Sly’s my guy! Stick it to those [insert derogatory term here]” let me ask you this: in the film, Rambo goes well beyond civility; he tortures a man by breaking his collar bone and threatening to snap it off on the spot, he ties up and beheads another man, he pins a third with arrows on the premise of further torture. We understand why he’s doing this; if the law isn’t necessarily on his side, karma is. However, have I described the actions of a good guy or a bad guy? The things he does … aren’t they things villains do? Part of being a true hero is understanding that satisfaction can never be achieved in any form. Previous Rambos understood that.
I’m gonna rant now. You can stop reading if you like. Suffice to say: had this movie not been laden with such obvious far-right dog-whistles, the same story might have merited two stars. However, we live in a world in which Donald Trump treated Sicario 2 as a documentary, and thus I cannot ignore how xenophobic, paranoid, and plain racist Rambo: Last Blood feels.
Let’s examine the ways in which this film echoes Trump doctrine:
1) Belief in the unquestioned wisdom and infallibility of old white men. (Sorry, but you dudes completely abdicated your role as wisdom dispensers the second you elected Trump.)
2) Belief that the borders are porous sieves
3) Belief that the borders are completely unprotected
4) Belief that health care is best handled through praying real hard
5) Belief that one minute of biased indulgence suddenly makes you an expert on a subject
6) Belief that you have the right to act in lawless ways upon beliefs only you and your crowd hold
7) Belief that armed American white men are both a necessary good and above the law
8) Belief that all Mexicans are criminals (seriously, every Mexican in the film who doesn’t look like Debra Winger is either a criminal or an enabler)
9) Belief that Mexicans only bring drugs, weapons, and crime to the United States
10) Belief that the ends justify the means
And what ends they are: this is a Trump tale if I ever heard one – old white man decides to go to war with evil Mexico in the name of justice. In the end, he does a ton of damage and leaves a lot of bodies, but did he make anything better? Really? He sure didn’t improve this country. If you believe that Mexico is replete with criminals, he probably didn’t help Mexico, either. He didn’t help himself; he blew up half his property to kill bad guys. The important thing, however, is he acted out of anger and imperfect knowledge … and for thirty seconds, he owned the people he didn’t like. At the end of the day, the only thing differing from the Trump playbook is that Rambo managed to hurt people who actually deserved it. In a true Trump tale, Rambo would immediately proceed to destroy the “libtards” protesting children-in-cages border horrors. After all, aren’t those the true enemies of all that is good and American, Trump sycophants?
There’s a niece that John Rambo must save
If he’s late, the results will be grave
But geez, Uncle John
Just look what you’ve done
You were better off in an Afghani cave
Rated R, 89 Minutes
Director: Adrian Grunberg
Writer: Matthew Cirulnick & Sylvester Stallone
Genre: Putting Mexico in its place
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: “Build that wall! Build that wall!”
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People with a soul
