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First Blood AKA Rambo: First Blood (1982)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Lionsgate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (20th April 2007). |
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The Film
 The fame in Hollywood can disappear quickly. American actor/co-writer Sylvester Stallone learned this the hard way, when his official “action star of the world” status (only really challenged by Arnold Schwarzenegger) slowly changed into almost “unwanted”. The film industry evolved and Stallone couldn´t really adapt. It´s almost amazing how many bad choices he did during the 1990s and like Schwarzenegger - he just kept doing the same thing, rarely taking any chances. The saddest thing was that, with the right role, Stallone was a gifted actor, but this was mostly buried under the countless action-vehicles. He was stereotyped. Now when his comeback seems to be a reality, it is no coincidence that it´s because of the trusted characters of Rocky and Rambo. Although both sagas have taken the life of their own and became quite comical and über-macho, the original movies have stood the test of time; “Rocky (1976)” was the surprise Oscar-winner and Stallone´s ticket to stardom, while “First Blood (1982)” was the corner stone of all action films and quite a serious study of man and his inner demons. Before the character was in Vietnam (“Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)”) and in Afghanistan (“Rambo III (1988)”), John J. Rambo (Stallone) started his war in the small American town called “Hope”. In the beginning of the film, Rambo still has some “hope” left, when he finally finds his last friend from his unit in the Vietnam War. These hopes are crushed soon, when he hears that the friend has quietly died from cancer that he got from the war - mainly due to Agent Orange. While walking back, deep in his thoughts, Rambo meets the town Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy - e.g. “Cocoon (1985)”, “F/X (1986)”, and “Best Seller (1987)”), who offers a ride. Instead of taking him to the nearest diner, he drives Rambo through the town and bluntly advises him to move on. Teasle doesn´t want drifters like Rambo in his quiet little town, causing trouble. This behaviour sparks a flame on Rambo, who decides to start walking back to the town - it´s still a free country. Teasle intervenes again and this time arrests Rambo after some heated moments, also finding the big hunting/survival knife that he carries. Back in the station some of the “hillbilly” deputies (one of the nicer ones is Mitch (David Caruso - e.g. “NYPD Blue (1993-1994)” and “CSI: Miami (2002-)” TV-series)) are having a field day with the “longhaired” drifter. Since Rambo doesn´t co-operate, they are using e.g. a water hose for “washing” him and beat him a few times. This isolated and hostile environment opens the scars from Vietnam and Rambo starts having flashbacks from the torture he faced when he was a POW. The last straw is when the deputies try to shave Rambo with a razor. He fights back, beating several of the men and finds his way outside. With the stolen motorcycle and Teasle right on his heels, he escapes to the cold and misty mountains. Soon the whole station is mobilised with dogs and a helicopter and when one careless deputy dies - mainly because of his greed for revenge, things are getting really personal with Sheriff Teasle. They are also learning that Rambo is a genuine “Green Beret”, awarded with a “Medal of Honour”. This doesn´t stop Teasle, who orders his men back to the woods to hunt Rambo. The hunters quickly become the hunted, when Rambo uses his superior skills of guerilla warfare and exploiting nature, ambushing the deputies one by one. The quiet operation turns into a media circus, with the state police and National Guard involved. Still, there might be (only) one man who can get Rambo to surrender; Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna - “Breakheart Pass (1975)” and “Leviathan (1989)”) - a man who commended Rambo in the war and a man who turned him into a killing machine. Like probably many others, I have warm memories of “First Blood”, all the way from the VHS-days. The film felt “fresh” and exciting back then and it´s clearly a better film compared to the sequels. It´s still a very good movie by itself, though. The sequels might be fun, mindless action-entertainment, but the “First Blood” is in a league of its own, a deeper film and the one that most likely started the whole “one man army”-sub genre. It´s now hard to imagine anyone else playing Rambo other than Stallone, but the film has a very turbulent history; based on a best selling book (1972) from the author David Morrell, there were around 26 versions of the script and it went through 5 studios before - then just started - “Carolco Pictures” finally produced the film. Even the lead star was very reluctant to do the film at first (since the project was almost like “cursed” and at the time was passed by several known actors), but the hefty 3.5 million$ paycheck (very high at the time) was the final push for Stallone to take the part. He also fine-tuned the screenplay, so in the film the character is more sympathetic and another of Sly´s “underdog” characters, mainly protecting himself and the honour that he has left rather than killing everyone in sight. Rage is there, but now controllable. The film also gives a rather frank statement about the Vietnam veterans, which were often mistreated and isolated from the society when they returned home, taking the blame for the whole war. Military created these men to kill, but rarely wanted any part of their lives after their duty was over. Like Rambo in the film, many had post-traumatic stress disorder, a common syndrome for war veterans, but not that well understood back then. All this gives a character of Rambo more dimensions, since on the inside this superior soldier is almost like a child, looking for some comfort and most of all help. When he´s pushed in the corner, all he can do is answer violence with violence. Like author Morrell describes it, Rambo now brings the Vietnam War to the backyard of Americans. Director Ted Kotcheff (e.g. “Uncommon Valor (1983)”) handles the story well and the film is tight and focused all the way though. The locations are also another star in the film, since the wet British Columbian mountains with fog, mist and low light are a perfect choice for the story. Director of photography Andrew Laszlo (DoP of many action-related films to director Walter Hill - e.g. “The Warriors (1979)”, “Southern Comfort (1981)”, and “Streets of Fire (1984)”) uses plenty of natural light and the film is almost “low lit” in some scenes, but this adds realism to the whole film. Only a few more “thunder strikes” look too artificial. The film delivers action as well as suspense in the woods, but it´s essentially a drama. Stallone gives a very physical performance, but also one of his best roles in his career. The “ending monologue” is almost Oscar-worthy, if you ask me. Dennehy has always been one of the most underrated actors and is another ideal choice to play the Sheriff. Richard Crenna is also effective, but his character is too many times on the screen just to point out “how lethal Rambo is”, almost giving a few cheesy lines about the character. Trautman is a very important character, but some sloppiness probably occurred during the writing of his part. Of course, it´s impossible not to mention the famous score by the composer (Jerry Goldsmith - composer of over 230 productions), which just could be one of the best film scores of all times. Even the alternate ending song (sung by Dan Hill) manages to be great, even when the lyrics are a bit dated. “First Blood” was one of the highlights in the 1980s and still one of the best action films out there. It´s not a perfect film and includes some silliness - enough for it not to be taken fully seriously, but the entertaining values are very high. Recommended.
Video
“First Blood” is presented in 2.35:1 widescreen (1080p 24fps) and is using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The style of the film is quite non-colourful, dark and greyish (since most of the time the film is set in the mountains or in the dark town) and this Blu-ray-release does a pretty good job with it. Some of the darker shots are more problematic and there´s some softness, but the transfer probably does justice to the original look of the film. There´s some film grain and the background can get a bit “restless” (doens´t look “spot on”), but nothing that major. I didn´t spot any obvious edge enhancement. I have only the older R1 SE from “Artisan” to compare, but the Blu-ray transfer is superior compared to that, even when the film doesn´t win the “most pristine look”-awards in any format. It´s always going to be somewhat gritty in terms of the look. Bitrate seems to be around 20-24 Mbps. The film is using “BD-25”-disc and there are 30 chapters. The film runs 93:11 minutes. Note, that the disc is confirmed to be "R0" (packaging states disc is "Region 1" only, but can be played in all regions). Menu system is powered by “Metamenu” technology. Review equipment: Sony Bravia KDL-40W2000 LCD (1080p) + Playstation 3, via HDMI cable.
Audio
3 audio tracks are included; English DTS-HD High Resolution ES, English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (at 640 Kbps) and English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (at 192 Kbps). Note that the 2.0-track is not listed on the back cover, nor in the main menu. Unlike the earlier “Lionsgate” HD-releases, my receiver didn´t find any “ES” or “EX” flags, so I can´t fully confirm that they´re present. I watched the movie with DTS-HD track, which was downconverted from 3018 Kbps to 1536 Kbps DTS (equal to “full bitrate” DTS from the selected standard DVDs). At this point my receiver can´t support the full DTS-HD-audio, but fortunately the HD tracks are backwards compatible. The track is a bit dated and lacking some depth, but the dialogue is clear and there are some selected, nice surround activity (storm, music), along with some action scenes (car chases, gun shots and explosions). English and Spanish subtitles are also included (there are no English HoH subtitles). So far “Lionsgate” have been using “DTS-HD High Resolution” (not Master).
Extras
The good news is that the Blu-ray-release ports almost all extras from both the R1 SE (“Artisan”) and R1 UE (“Lionsgate”) -releases. “Survival Mode”-feature is missing, but instead there´s probably a very similar trivia track (I´m not sure how similar these two actually are). Trailers are also not included for some reason. Extras don´t include any subtitles. -First Audio commentary is with actor/co-writer Sylvester Stallone and is an excellent one. “Sly” always gives witty and humourous interviews and his style works perfectly in this commentary also. He instantly starts telling about the “doomed script” that circulated in Hollywood and the character that he was creating on the screen. He did plenty of re-writing himself. You´ll learn about the real town “Hope” in Canada (people weren´t in the good mood, since there were plenty of unemployment, but many were happy to work as extras), difficult scenes (he was hit in the lower back during the “shower scenes” several times and he broke the nose of one of the actors during the same scenes), use of music (there are no music e.g. in the “bike-chase” scene), difficult conditions (due to the high hemisphere, the darkness arrived soon and there were problems with coldness and rain), continuity errors (he steals the jacket from one of the deputies, but is not using it in the movie), the more humourous and lighter scenes, which he doesn´t particularly like (“goof troops” scene with National Guard and also some silly lines of dialogue), Ronald Reagan (Stallone is not really happy that Rambo-character was sometimes connected to the “right wing”, when he was just an opposite in the beginning), Kirk Douglas (these stories about Douglas and his script-change demands are very funny), off-duty (humorous story about Stallone going to the nearest bar in full Rambo-costume) and of course the difficult stunts (he did many stunts himself, including the “last part” of the famous jump to the tree - suffering broken ribs and there were other minor injuries). He also talks about the first cut of the film (40-50 minutes longer than the current one), which he hated. After seeing the 40 minutes “exhibition tape” for the distributors with music, tighter editing and “right” plot points, also Stallone started to see the film in a different light. Apart from a few stories of the other actors, Stallone focuses on the story, his character and experiences during the film, and hardly mentions e.g. director Ted Kotcheff. The commentary still sounds self-centred only a few times and stays entertaining throughout the movie. No matter what people think about Stallone, they can´t deny that he´s definitely one of the “good guys” in Hollywood. -Second Audio commentary is with the author of the original book, David Morrell (NOTE that this section includes SPOILERS from both the film and the book). Morrell gives another insightful and energetic commentary, which goes to compare the original book and the film, but also to give more info about the original character and his motives. Morrell is clearly pleased with the film and respects Stallone, even when the book changed when it was turned into a movie. He starts off by telling how he first saw the film (he was Professor of the American Literature at the time), inspiration for the lead character (American WWII hero Audie Murphy, who also suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder), inspiration for the story (e.g. the film “Lonely Are the Brave (1962)”) and about the name of “Rambo” (apple brand). He also tells a quite moving story of his late boy, who before dying from bone cancer got the chance to talk with Mr. Stallone himself. It´s also interesting to hear about the differences of the book vs. the film. The biggest difference probably is the fact that in the book the character of Rambo is psychotic on the loose, killing almost 250 people (!), while in the movie only 4 people die (all basically accidents). The opening scene in the film is not in the book and minor bits (Rambo is totally naked when he escapes in the book, kills e.g. the little boy in cold blood in the book, destroys basically the whole town in the end in the book) are changed throughout the movie. Sheriff Teasle has also a much bigger role in the book, which is essentially a generation conflict between Rambo and Teasle - two war heroes (Teasle is a Korean war veteran, a fact that is not well presented in the film). Most of all, the ending is different and in the book Colonel Trautman finally shoots Rambo with a shotgun (the death scene of Rambo was indeed filmed - more about that on the “deleted scenes” section). Teasle also dies in the book. Morrell widens the perspective of the character and the premises of the story. He gives good comments from the film also, not just pointing the differences between the book and the film. -High Definition Exclusive Bonus feature: “Out of the Blu” trivia track works within a subtitle stream, bringing pop-up trivia to screen throughout the movie. Instead of regular subtitles, the small “boxes” appears from time to time. I watched this along with the Morrell commentary and this clearly works best in that way (with one of the audio commentaries, that is). Various tidbits about the actors, production and the story (also about the book) are included and the track also gives information of the “injuries” that characters receive during the various scenes, some “weapon trivia” and also info about the side effects that you could get (hypothermia, etc) if you actually would have to live like Rambo does in the film. All this is mildly interesting and harmless, but nothing you couldn´t skip. -“Drawing First Blood” -featurette (in 480p standard definition - 22:35 minutes) includes interviews from the actor/co-writer Sylvester Stallone, author of the original book - David Morrell, director Ted Kotcheff, producer Buzz Feitshans, and executive producers Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna (as Andrew Vajna). If you´ve already listened to the audio commentaries, this probably doesn´t bring anything that new, but it´s nice to hear comments from the producers, who also talk about Kirk Douglas and also how after many obstacles, the different distributors literally fought over the film rights. Entertaining featurette. -Three deleted scenes (in 480p standard definition - 05:33 minutes) run in one longer section (NOTE, that this section also includes SPOILERS): 1) Alternate suicide ending: This is the original ending, where Rambo dies. It was shown to the test audiences with bad results and soon the filmmakers realized that you can´t kill the character of this magnitude. In the scene, Rambo places the gun in the hand of Colonel Trautman, begging him to finish the job. Then suddenly pulls the trigger of the gun himself, still in Trautman´s hand. 2) Saigon bar flashback: Unused flashback from Rambo at the cave (where he´s eating pork), where he and his army buddies are at the bar somewhere in Vietnam and Rambo makes love with the local girl. The reality brings tears to his eyes at the cave. 3) Humorous ending: This scene is an unused blooper for the “Alternate suicide ending”, where Stallone breaks up into laughter at the end. Some bonus trailers are also included (in 1080p): “Crank (2006)” (1:59 min), “The Descent (2005)” (1:52 min), and the “Lionsgate Blu-ray promo” (2:18 min). The first two also run before the “Main menu” (they can be skipped). This disc is packaged in a standard Blu-ray case.
Overall
“First Blood” is a film that I assume works for a variety of people, all the way from the mainstream action-fans to the more serious film critics. It has some flaws, but it introduces one of the most memorable characters in film history - and it´s doing it well. The Blu-ray-release is a very good effort, this time also including most of the extras from the older DVDs. For more info, please visit the homepage of Lionsgate Home Entertainment.
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