Violence.  Carnage.  Mayhem.  It’s all in a days work for John Rambo.  And in this fourth film in the Rambo series, he proves that he’s still the best there is when it comes to the killing game. 

Rambo, almost two decades since we last saw him teaming up with the Afghan warlords in Rambo III, is now living close to the Burmese border, making a living with the inexplicable job of “snake catcher”. 

When a party of missionaries arrives wanting Rambo to take them to Burma, he at first refuses, telling them that Burma is a war zone.  But when Sarah (played by “Dexter” actress Julie Benz) tries to convince him of the good they are there to do, Rambo relents and against his better judgment drops them off in hostile territory. 

As you can see, the story is your standard action fair.  From here, Rambo finds out later that the missionaries have been taken prisoner and the U.S. government isn’t going to do anything to help them.  And of course, when a mercenary team is assembled and ready to go in and save the missionaries, only John Rambo can lead them. 

While so far it may seem like I didn’t particularly care for this movie, actually I feel quite to the contrary.   While there was not really anything new here, Rambo was back in form, gritty and unbelievably destructive.  As a matter of fact, I would go as far as to say that this is my second favorite of the Rambo series, behind the original First Blood. 

The biggest problem with the film as I see it is the one dimensional aspect of most of the characters.  Mostly everyone is a cliché.  The missionaries are pacifistic.  The Burmese military is uniformly evil.   The mercenaries are for the most part stereotypical mercenaries.  And Rambo is still the same haunted killing machine we have known for all these years. 

The violence in this movie is brought up to the level of a gory horror film and I’m actually surprised it even managed to get itself an “R” rating.  People fly apart as struck by .50 machine gun fire, a head is lopped off cleanly by a machete strike, and a thick scum of human debris can be seen sticking to equipment throughout the battlefield. 

Is this technically a great movie?  No.  Is this a good movie?  Maybe.  Did this movie deliver everything I expected from it?  Hell Yes. 

So How Does It End? 

Rambo ended in an absolute bloodbath.  Rambo saves the day (and Julie Benz) and doesn’t end up dying in the process.  There really isn’t that much more to say about the finale beyond describing the horrible and disgusting ways in which people died. 

In the end, Rambo returns to America, seemingly to lead a quiet life.