In 1988’s Rambo III, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has finally found peace. He’s also apparently found a good cosmetologist because his hair looks amazing.
Having destroyed the town of Hope and belatedly won the Vietnam War, Rambo is now living with a bunch of Buddhist monks in Thailand. The only time he fights is so he can win money that he then donates to the monastery. When Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) and CIA agent Robert Griggs (Kurtwood Smith) show up and ask him to lead a team of mercenaries into Afghanistan, Rambo refuses. Even though Afghanistan is occupied by the same type of Russians that Rambo defeated when he returned to Vietnam, Rambo still refuses. Not even seeing pictures of dead civilians can sway Rambo. Rambo is a man of peace now. Griggs thinks he’s a coward but Trautman understands. However, when Trautman is forced to lead the mercenaries himself, he ends up getting captured by the Russians. Now, Rambo feels that he has no choice but to head to Afghanistan to save the only real friend that he has.
For better or worse, Rambo III is a film of its time. It went into production when the Russians were occupying Afghanistan and they were losing a war with the Mujahideen and several other tribes. (In fact, the Russians actually announced that they would be withdrawing from Afghanistan just a few days before Rambo III opened.) In the best 80s tradition, Rambo spends the majority of this movie blowing up communists. If you’re actually aware of the amount of harm that communism — especially the type that was practiced by the Russians — has actually done to the world, there’s something very satisfying about watching it get defeated by one rugged individualist. You can quote Marx and Lenin all you want. It’s not going to do you any good when Rambo rams into your helicopter with a tank.
At the same time, it’s hard to watch Rambo III without thinking about how some of the Mujahideen (though certainly not all) later formed what would become Al-Qaeda and The Taliban. Though the Russians were repelled, Afghanistan itself fell apart as the tribes that were once (as seen in Rambo III) united in their fight against Russia then turned on each other. And, of course, America itself would later get drawn into its own war in Afghanistan, one that ended with the then-President making an ignominious and chaotic exit, 13 members of the U.S. military being killed during the 2021 Kabul airport attack, and the Taliban once again coming to power.
All of that aside, though, what type of movie is Rambo III? It’s the longest of all the First Blood films and it doesn’t have the emotional power of the first film or the unapologetically over-the-top vibe of the second film. The opening scenes in Thailand almost feel like a parody of a Rambo film. And yet, once the action finally starts, Rambo III is definitely entertaining. As played by Marc de Jonge, the main Russian is so evil that you really do find yourself looking forward to his inevitable one-and-one confrontation with Rambo. Rambo III may not be the best for the First Blood films but it understands that sometimes, it’s just fun to watch the bad guys explode. Speaking of exploding, there’s a scene where Rambo cauterizes a wound with gunpowder. Apparently, after the film came out, someone attempted to do this in real life and blew off his leg. Don’t try to be Rambo, folks. There can be only one.
It’s interesting to see Rambo and Trautman fighting together. Trautman may not be as big as Rambo but he’s still a badass in his own way. Assuming that Trautman was roughly the same age as the actor who played him, he was 60 years old and still withstood Russian torture. In the first film, Trautman took credit for creating Rambo. In the third film, he glad that he did.
