Rambo III (1988)

User Rating:

4.8/10   

Director:

Peter MacDonald

Writers (WGA):

David Morrell (characters)
Sylvester Stallone (written by) ...

Release Date:

25 May 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Thriller

Tagline:

God would have mercy John Rambo won't!

Plot:

Rambo's Vietnam commanding officer Colonel Trautman is held hostage in Afghanistan, and its up to Rambo to rescue him.

Plot Keywords:

Rambo | Colonel | Rescue | Afghanistan | Soviet

Awards:

2 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Sylvester Stallone	...	Rambo
Richard Crenna	...	Trautman
Marc de Jonge	...	Zaysen
Kurtwood Smith	...	Griggs
Spiros Focás	...	Masoud (as Spiros Focas)
Sasson Gabai	...	Mousa
Doudi Shoua	...	Hamid
Randy Raney	...	Kourov
Marcus Gilbert	...	Tomask
Alon Abutbul	...	Nissem
Mahmoud Assadollahi	...	Rahim
Joseph Shiloach	...	Khalid
Harold Diamond	...	Stick Fighter
Matti Seri	...	Gun Dealer
Hany Said El Deen	...	Gun Dealer

Also Known As:

Rambo 3 (International: English title) (alternative spelling)
Rambo: First Blood Part III (Malaysia: English title)

Runtime:

102 min | Finland:87 min (1988) (heavily cut) (VHS version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Italy:T | Iceland:16 | West Germany:18 (video release) (cut) | Germany:Not Rated (SPIO/JK) (DVD release) | Finland:K-16 (1998) (uncut) (video) | UK:18 (uncut) (2001) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A | South Korea:15 | Finland:K-16 (video rating) (1988) (heavily cut) | Finland:K-18 (theatrical rating) (1988) (uncut) | Malaysia:18PL | Brazil:14 | Netherlands:16 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | France:U | Norway:18 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:18 (cut) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Bangkok, Thailand

Company:

Carolco Pictures

Trivia:

There is no female role in the main cast, and few women appear in the film.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Almost every time the Russian gunship helicopter attacks and is filmed from the front, there are muzzle flashes coming out of the rocket pods, but no rockets are being fired. Even if rockets were being fired, there would still be no muzzle flashes.

Quotes:

[Rambo and Colonel Trautman stand alone facing an enemy army]
Colonel Trautman: What do we do?
Rambo: Well, surrounding them's out of the question...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

Soundtrack:

THE BRIDGE

A comparatively well-written opening 30 minutes gives way to the usual overblown one-man-army stuff

Living in a Buddhist monastery, making his living off illegal fights when he is approached by Colonel Trautman and Robert Griggs for help in a mission into Afghanistan to help fight the Soviet invasion. Rambo refuses and Trautman goes in alone but is immediately ambushed and captured. When Rambo hears this he throws off his peaceful ways and joins forces with the Mujahedeen rebels to launch a daring rescue mission deep behind enemy lines in Afghanistan.

Having seen Rambo's I-III in the last three weeks thanks to BBC3 I feel I have seen the series in the way I would like to have – all at once and as quickly as possible. I didn't think much of part 2 and was prepared for an even more overblown part 3 however credit where credit is due, it is better than part 2 even if that is not saying a great deal. The film opens surprisingly well apart from a silly opening fight scene (he's a Buddhist right?) that is made even funnier by the fact that it has been spoofed by Hot Shots 2 really well. However after this nonsense we get a lot of dialogue that is actually quite good: funny ('it's blue'), interesting, sharp ('where is the glory here?') and quite a balanced look at the situation. Sadly, after 30 minutes of this the film starts to realize that people who have come to the cinema to see Rambo 3 have probably not come for the dialogue and hence we get down to a series of big action set pieces where Rambo takes on the world single handed.

Needless to say the film becomes a by-the-numbers affair from here on in – baddies who can't hit a barn door, indestructible Rambo, young Afghan orphans in peril, cruel Russians, big explosions, OTT death scenes and so on. If this is all you want then you'll pretty much get what you're after; for my money the action was all a bit silly and overblown to be really involving – zero tension and only the spectacle value of the action to keep you watching. As such I found it to be an average film at best but one that I quite enjoyed watching as a dumb action movie. To it's credit it does manage some funny lines during the rest of the movie ('surrounding them is out') but it is apparent to all that the script writer hats were taken off halfway through and replaced by the 'lets blow it all up' hats – when Rambo faces down an entire Soviet army unit you pretty much know that this is not designed to tax your brain or be taken seriously!

The cast pretty much match their material. Stallone manages to have completely robbed Rambo of the interesting elements he had in First Blood and the attempts to give him depth by sticking him in a monastery for 10 minutes is just laughably inept! Crenna seems to enjoy himself in an undemanding role that allows him to do more shooting that the other films but that's about his lot. De Jonge is a better Soviet than the ham that was Berkov but he is still a pantomime villain most of the way through. Smith is a well known face but that's amount the limit of his value in this film although local support from Focás (there's a carry-on joke in there somewhere), Gabai and particularly Shoua as well as others are OK considering they are really just background or fodder.

Overall this is better than Rambo 2 simply because the writing is better in the first 30 minutes and it has some funny lines during the action, however this isn't saying much. The majority of the film is a big dumb action movie of the 'one-man-takes-on-the-world' ilk, if that's your thing then you'll love it, personally I prefer to be involved in the film and be tense and excited. Despite this I still enjoyed it a bit but only for what it was – lots of things blowing up in stupid and OTT ways. Good for teenage boys (of all ages) but really not much worth for anyone else.