Film
The film First Blood takes place in December 1981, and begins with John Rambo (now a homeless, out-of-work drifter) searching for Delmore Barry, an old friend with whom he served in Vietnam. He goes to Barry's home but is told by his mother that he died from cancer due to Agent Orange exposure. This means that Rambo has now become the last surviving member of his Special Forces unit. He then travels to the small town of Hope, Washington (the movie was filmed in Hope, British Columbia, evidenced by the town sign), where he is quickly spotted by the town's overzealous and paranoid sheriff, Will Teasle, due to his long hair, military-style coat and all-around scruffy appearance. Teasle soon picks him up and drives him to the edge of town, while stressing his dislike of drifters and "trouble makers." Rambo begins heading back into town immediately after being dropped off, and Teasle then arrests him and takes him to the local police station.
When searching Rambo, Teasle discovers a large survival knife on Rambo's belt. At the station, the Deputy Sheriff, Art Galt, harasses and beats Rambo, who begins having flashbacks to the war, where he was a POW. When officers attempt to dry shave him, Rambo finally snaps and fights his way out of the station, retrieving his knife. Outside, he hijacks a motorcycle from a man driving past and flees into the nearby mountains while being pursued by Teasle in his police car. Teasle crashes his car, and Rambo escapes. Teasle calls in more officers and a helicopter, while Rambo abandons his motorcycle and makes his way into the deep terrain on foot. Later, he is spotted on a steep cliff face by the search helicopter with Galt in the passenger's seat. Galt fires at him a number of times with his rifle, forcing Rambo to leap from the cliff, falling through a tree. Galt continues to fire upon the injured Rambo on the ground. Fighting back, Rambo throws a rock and hits the helicopter's windshield, causing the pilot to lose control, and Galt is thrown to his death. Rambo takes Galt's gun, tends his injuries, and eventually confronts the lawmen on the cliff above. Rambo shouts to them, "There's one man dead! It wasn't my fault!". Teasle tells Rambo not to move or they will shoot. Rambo says he wants no more trouble, and begins to back away, but the men open fire; Rambo flees into the woods, with Teasle and his deputies in pursuit.
The men catch up to Rambo, and they release the tracking dogs. Rambo shoots two with his last bullets, and kills the other with his knife. The men begin to flank out and pursue Rambo, but Rambo easily disables them using guerrilla tactics. Rambo severely wounds each man, but does not kill any of them. Rambo jumps out of the brush and grabs Teasle, putting his knife to his throat. He tells him, "In town you're the law. Out here it's me." He tells Teasle to "Let it go" and give up his pursuit. Teasle refuses, and the State Police and National Guard are called in to assist in the hunt. Colonel Samuel Trautman soon arrives, taking credit for training Rambo. He is surprised to find any of the deputies still alive, and warns that it would be safer to let Rambo go and find him after the situation has calmed down. Teasle refuses to give in. Teasle asks Trautman to try and contact Rambo on the radio he took to get his position. Trautman gets Rambo to respond on the radio, calling out his Vietnam company. Rambo says that he cannot turn himself in and tells Trautman, "They drew first blood, not me." Rambo is eventually cornered by the National Guard in a mine entrance. Teasle gets word they have cornered him, and gives an order not to fire. The inexperienced guardsmen ignore this order, and fire a rocket launcher at him. The blast collapsed the mine entrance, trapping him inside. The men assume Rambo is dead, but unknown to his pursuers, Rambo has instead escaped into the tunnels of the mine.
Rambo eventually finds an old exit vent, near a main road from out of which the troops are clearing. Rambo hijacks a passing Army truck (throwing its driver out onto the road in the process) and returns to town, crashing it into a gas station. He blocks the highway to anyone in pursuit, by igniting the spilled fuel. Now heavily armed with an M60 machine gun, Rambo destroys transformers knocking out the power to the town. Rambo spots Teasle on the station roof, destroys a few other businesses and a gun shop before making his way to the police station. Rambo destroys the police station before making his way inside. Teasle spots Rambo and fires at him, but misses. Rambo shoots back at Teasle, injuring him. Teasle falls through the roof onto the floor. Rambo steps over him, prepared to kill him. Before Rambo can shoot Teasle, Colonel Trautman appears and tells him that there is no hope of escaping alive. Rambo, now surrounded by the police, rages about the horrors of war, and the difficulties he has faced adapting to civilian life. Breaking down, he then weeps as he recounts a particularly gruesome story about witnessing his friend dying. He tells Trautman how they were in a bar, talking about his friend's Chevy and driving to Las Vegas in it, when a boy came in with a booby-trapped shoeshine box. Rambo had gone into the bar to buy two beers when the box suddenly exploded, tearing his friend's lower body off. Rambo then turns himself in to Trautman, and is arrested.
(There is an alternative ending where Rambo wants to die. Rambo gives a gun to Trautman, and tells Trautman to kill him. Trautman does not respond where soon after Rambo then hands the gun to Trautman, and proceeds to pull the trigger while facing Rambo. Rambo subsequently dies of his wounds and Trautman then is left alone in the station and walks away.)
Read more about this topic: John Rambo, Fictional Biography, First Blood
Famous quotes containing the word film:
“If you want to tell the untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you’ve got to find a language. Which goes for film as well as prose, for documentary as well as autobiography. Use the wrong language, and you’re dumb and blind.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1948)
“Film is more than the twentieth-century art. It’s another part of the twentieth-century mind. It’s the world seen from inside. We’ve come to a certain point in the history of film. If a thing can be filmed, the film is implied in the thing itself. This is where we are. The twentieth century is on film.... You have to ask yourself if there’s anything about us more important than the fact that we’re constantly on film, constantly watching ourselves.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
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—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)