Guts and gore gallore

Dear Blog,

Yesterday found me in bed all day. I wasn't feeling well so I called in sick and took the day to rest up. I feel better today, but I'm still a little tired.

I saw Rambo Saturday evening with Colin, Tyler, and Bryan.

Rambo: The review.

If anything, this movie served as a reminder that I'm not as desensitized to violence in today's films as I thought I was. Rambo takes modern action flicks and makes them look like they should be shown to pre-schoolers, it is just that gory and action-packed in comparison.

Not that I am a fan of mindless gore and over-the-top violence.

However, the violence in Rambo is not mindless; it has a purpose. It is based in reality, with the current Burma/Myanmar civil war at its core. The violence is used to show the audience the depravity of the army and help us understand, even if just a little, the constant state of fear and oppression the Burmese civillians have been living through every day of their lives for the past sixty years thanks to the tyranny of the Myanmar army.

For all the raped women, tortured children, blown up men, and maimed everyone portrayed in the movie, by far the most disturbing images were in the opening sequence. Pulled from the news and from hushed broadcasts directly out of Burma, these images of murdered monk protestors and decapitated farmers being thrown into shallow mass graves were the hardest to look at because they were real. They were not Hollywood tricks and illusions, but real dead men and women who have most likely experienced the simulated action that is about to unfold on the silver screen. Stallone made a wise decision in planting the seed of reality at the beginning of this action flick.

All of that being said, Rambo is what it is: an action movie. By the time Rambo dons his bandana and raises his hand-made blade, you've seen enough violence from the bad guys to cheer for every one of them to die mercilessly by Rambo's hands. You can't help but feel a sense of justice every time a throat is ripped out or a rain of bullets turns an army soldier into a meaty pulp. The action and violence is nearly non-stop, once it gets started, and it's uncomfortably good until it does come to an end. It makes you wish there was a real John Rambo taking care of all the malfeasance of the world.

Rambo is intense, it is visceral, and it it has a bit of nuance with a message somewhere deep down beneath all the carnage. It's what action movies are meant to be, while still being smarter than most.