Rambo: Last Blood – Bogdan's Review Blog

This is how you make a movie about rival drug dealers kidnapping children and the attempt to save them without appearing that you have an agenda against them. Not Rambo Last Blood, a racist fueled exploitation flick. One should take notes on how to make violence tasteful without appearing, as I said, racist. Enough about Rambo Last Blood, this movie is called Extraction and it stars Chris Hemsworth as a mercenary with nothing left to lose. Who takes up a suicide mission to save a drug crime lord’s son from a rival drug lord. Story takes place in Mumbai and Dhaka. Scenery is chewed through by the explosive, frenetic yet easily followed action and set pieces. All the close combat action is well shot and easy to follow. And never did I feel that it was over the top, or that our hero had an extreme hatred for his enemies (ok last time I mention Rambo).

It was a well crafted story that managed to bring some layers to our otherwise static hero vs villain tale. All the characters in such a story are never given enough time to flesh them out and make them feel real. At most, we can identify with our main and see the layers unfold for them. Here we saw that not just our hero is layered, but that his enemies and allies are as well. They managed to make them human, like “somebody’s father” and that is what makes them more compelling to watch. I like knowing my hero’s story, knowing whether they’re tortured by their past, or that they love their son very much but cannot be there for them. I like knowing my villain is a true piece of work, who has no qualms about killing children to achieve his goals. These moments of humanizing the characters to be more than pieces on a chess board, is what helps elevate this movie beyond a simple action tale. There is a message here to be found, even if it may be masked slightly. And what I took away, is that a child’s life is worth saving even if the parents might not be. That although we may run away to escape our problems, eventually those problems will return to haunt us in another shape until we finally face it head on. Until we are free of our demons, and have learned to accept them, we cannot find peace.

Beneath the violence and action that encompasses this movie, there is a surprising humanity and soul to it all. I’d definitely recommend this movie for a watch. If nothing else, you’ll be left entertained. It reminded me of Tears of the Sun. Another movie well worth the watch.

I went into watching this movie expecting violence. What I didn’t expect were the levels of extremity that were shown. It is downright brutal; it is relentless. This is a bleak movie, with no redemption or satisfying end. It is a movie about loss. And frankly, a movie about the blackest of hearts; a movie about pure evil. The villains are the Mexican drug cartels/traffickers. A wretched hive of villainy, completely deplorable scum who, in this movie, deserve everything that happens to them. As John Milius said, “We need to go down there, kill them all, flatten the place with bulldozers so when you wake up in the morning, there’s nothing there. I do believe if you have a military, you use it.”

Rambo: Last Blood takes this idea to heart in its execution. Our titular hero ends up bringing the full weight of one cartel down upon his head, and summarily kills every last one of them. Though this was not without reason or cause: these villains kidnapped, raped, drugged and inevitably killed Rambo’s niece. It is a story about a man who has absolutely nothing left to lose and we are to be witness to his wrath and vengeance. His brutal killings are almost an artform at this point. And his final kill was actually, while gory and nasty, well deserving for its villain. Personally it was over too quick. But I can’t complain. Our protagonist lost his soul, and our antagonist lost his heart. Who really won? Nobody.

My other gripes are several characters are pointless and they only serve to further Rambo’s story. They have no ending or point to their own selves. Such as Paz Vega, a journalist who saves Rambo and provides him with the intel needed to complete his mission of wanton death and destruction. She herself gets no closure or even writes an article. She’s a journalist in name only. The other gripe I have is 70% of the movie is in Spanish. I thought only 20% of Arizona speaks Spanish, yet there’s a disproportionate amount here. Yea, I understand when they’re in Mexico. But why the need to do it in Rambo’s home. Even he, himself, has a look on his face at times that says “please stop speaking in Spanish”.

The start of the movie has Rambo attempting to save lost hikers from a sudden deluge that leads, somehow, to a river flow down a mountain. It’s supposed to serve as a way to illustrate that Rambo still has PTSD from not being able to save lives but just comes across as corny and laughable.

In short, I don’t recommend this movie at all. Take a hard pass. This is a twisted revenge fantasy that should have remained that, a fantasy.