04-24-2020, 04:41 PM
First Blood (1982)
I'd never got around to seeing this 'til the other day, although I knew most of it by cultural osmosis and I'd seen some of the sequels and numerous tributes and parodies. It was probably a perfect film for a post-Vietnam audience, uniting counter-culture folks and Veterans in dislike for Brian Dennehy's small town Sheriff character and love for Sylvester Stallone's Medal of Honor winner, turned "longhair" drifter. Dennehy brilliantly plays his character as the worst kind of bullying, bigoted, arrogant, power-mad police man. A lot of the credit must go to Stallone for his rewrites to the script to make Rambo the hero (anti-hero?) instead of the villain. The action is top drawer, with dangerous looking real stunts featuring Stallone running around in the woods covered in filth and scrambling through mine shafts in danger of setting himself on fire with a petrol dipped torch. Jerry Goldsmith's score is magnificent, now I can see how influential it was on Alan Silvestri's 'Predator' music.
I'd never got around to seeing this 'til the other day, although I knew most of it by cultural osmosis and I'd seen some of the sequels and numerous tributes and parodies. It was probably a perfect film for a post-Vietnam audience, uniting counter-culture folks and Veterans in dislike for Brian Dennehy's small town Sheriff character and love for Sylvester Stallone's Medal of Honor winner, turned "longhair" drifter. Dennehy brilliantly plays his character as the worst kind of bullying, bigoted, arrogant, power-mad police man. A lot of the credit must go to Stallone for his rewrites to the script to make Rambo the hero (anti-hero?) instead of the villain. The action is top drawer, with dangerous looking real stunts featuring Stallone running around in the woods covered in filth and scrambling through mine shafts in danger of setting himself on fire with a petrol dipped torch. Jerry Goldsmith's score is magnificent, now I can see how influential it was on Alan Silvestri's 'Predator' music.
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