a5c7b9f00b Former Green Beret John Rambo is serving time in a federal prison. When the US military hears of American soldiers missing in action from the Vietnam war possibly still being alive and held captive, Colonel Trautman is authorized to send Rambo in to rescue them. For Rambo, this is what he would do best. If only the pencil-pushers would stop getting in his way. John Rambo is removed from prison by his former superior, Colonel Samuel Troutman, for a top-secret operation to bring back POW's still held in Vietnam. Rambo's assignment is to only take pictures of where the POWs are being held, but Rambo wants to get the POWs out of Vietnam. Teamed up with female Vietnamese freedom fighter Co Bao, Rambo embarks on a mission to rescue the POWs, who are being held by sadistic Vietnamese Captain Vinh and his Russian comrade, Lieutenant Colonel Padovsky. Rambo starts killing every enemy in sight while still focusing on his intentions to rescue the POWs. There are also corrupt American officials involved in the mission, including Marshall Murdock, one of Rambo's superiors. After the success of First Blood and Sylvester Stallone growing star after the that film and the Rocky series, a sequel seemed like a logical move for a studio to make money. And it did, with it's box-office of around $300 Million worldwide and latter video and DVD sells, and creation of Rambo fanboys.<br/><br/>At the end of First Blood John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) was arrested for his private war in Washington State. Rambo was in prison, working in a quarry when his old Colonel (Richard Crenna) gives him offer. He could do a solo mission in Vietnam to see if his old POW camp still exists and had American prisoners. If he did it then a Presidential Pardon was likely. In Vietnam he discovers that American POWs were still in the camp and taking the mission on face-value tries to go to his extraction where the man running the mission, Marshal Murdock (Charles Napier), aborts it. Rambo now has enemies on two fronts, the Vietnamese and their Soviet backs, and his own superiors back in Thailand.<br/><br/>After the Vietnam War some Americans have refused to accept the fact that they lost. It not hard to find people on the internet who believe that American could have won, and were winning on the battlefield. Rambo 2 gives this audience and America a charge to fight and win in Vietnam all over again. The first Rambo film at least had something to say about the treatment about of veterans, which the left and right could agree one. However, Rambo 2 turns Rambo into a right-wing character, showing how great America is, whilst the evil that Vietnam and Soviet Union represent. It also had the other major aspect of the Right-wing American mentality, don't trust the government. This is represented by Murdock, a Congressial bureaucrat who is willing to abandon Rambo and the POWs because of the cost and diplomatic problems that would arise. There are people in America who distrust bureaucrats and politicians from Washington D.C. who are at war with their own government; it's seems nuts to me. As well it shows that Soviet Union is the masterminds to all the evil in the Communist world. Stallone also got to take on the Soviets in Rocky IV in the same year. So we have established that the film is politically dodgy. It's also hard to believe because if the Americans did find out that the Vietnamese still have POWs, wouldn't they do everything in their power to give them back? Either diplomatically, militarily or covertly?<br/><br/>The action is pantomime and clichéd at times. There are some good bits, especially when Rambo had to use his old skills, like covering himself in mud before killing a Soviet soldier. This film is the first where we see the famous Rambo like, the hair-band, the vest, boots and the knife, which was parodied in Family Guy and countless people around the world who know of the films. There are some lovely violence deaths; my famous is the death of a Vietnamese soldier using an explosive bow and arrow. There is a Soviet soldier in the film who is shown to be an enforcer for the head of the Soviet troops. He was shown as a sadistic torturer, but could main Rambo for strenght and skill. This is should have been an area the film could have played up.<br/><br/>The acting is mixed, just like Stallone performance. Some of his performance is poor, but need the end he shows some of his acting muscles. The best actions in the film are Richard Crenna and Charles Napier as the different sides of the American military, especially in one scene where they argue the rights and wrongs of the situation. The worst performance was by Julia Nickson who played a Vietnamese woman working for the Americans. She couldn't act and the love story between her and Rambo was ridiculous and clichéd.<br/><br/>It's okay, but not really worth watching. As an Army veteran, I was deeply offended by this film. In my opinion, it is a disgrace to those who fought in the Vietnam war. To say that the real SF soldiers I knew were offended by this crap is an understatement. If the film were presented as satire or even as a cartoon (it was), it would have been better received. But it was taken seriously my many people, especially overseas. Silly as it sounds, wherever I went in Europe in the late 80's people seemed to judge me and Americans in general by this film. Unrealistic? Hmm, let's see. A monosyllabic, muscle-bound cretin is pulled off a prison work gang to go on a secret mission to SE Asia to free some American POW's. In a running battle he kills about 500 enemy soldiers with an M-60 machine gun that never runs out of ammo and never overheats. And he never misses, running with a 32lb gun held up with one arm. I could go on, but I'm getting a headache. I gave this a 2/10 only because it's slightly better than Rambo III. The body count is rising, Sly's pecs are blowing up, and Rambo himself is becoming more of a brand-name than a character, a mascot for masochism and murderous self-assertion. By federal order, John Rambo (<a href="/name/nm0000230/">Sylvester Stallone</a>) is released from prison and sent on a covert mission into the jungles of Vietnam in order to document by photograph whether any POWs are still being held there. Aided by Vietnamese freedom fighter Co Bao (<a href="/name/nm0630100/">Julia Nickson</a>), Rambo turns what is supposed to be a recon mission into a rescue mission. Rambo: First Blood Part II is a sequel to <a href="/title/tt0083944/">First Blood (1982)</a> (1982), which was based on First Blood, a 1972 novel by Canadian-American novelist David Morrell. In the novel, Rambo died at the end of the shoot-out in Hope, Washington. The expanded story and screenplay for Rambo II was written by James Cameron, Sylvester Stallone, and Kevin Jarre. Morrell novelized the movie in 1985. Rambo II was followed by two more sequels, <a href="/title/tt0095956/">Rambo III (1988)</a> (1988) and <a href="/title/tt0462499/">Rambo (2008)</a> (2008). During the mission briefing Murdock (<a href="/name/nm0621008/">Charles Napier</a>) said that he was with 2nd battalion 3rd Marines at Kon Tum in 1966. Just before Rambo boards the plane to Vietnam, he tells Colonel Trautman (<a href="/name/nm0001077/">Richard Crenna</a>) that the 2nd battalion was actually at Kud Sank 1966. Trautman claims he could have mixed it up, but Rambo claims that you couldn't forget something like that. It was later proven that Rambo was right and that Murdock had never served in the Vietnam War. After blowing up the camp and rescuing the POWs, Rambo heads his helicopter toward the American camp in Thailand but is tailed by Lt Col. Podovsky (<a href="/name/nm0000925/">Steven Berkoff</a>), who fires upon him several times. Faking a hit, Rambo lands his copter on a river and plays dead. Thinking he has the advantage, Podovsky lands near Rambo and prepares to fire. Suddenly, Rambo springs to life and fires on Podovsky, destroying him. He then returns to the "Wolf Den" and shoots up Murdock's command center. Holding Murdock at arm's length with his knife, he demands that Murdock locate and rescue any remaining POWs in Vietnam. Assured that the rescued POWs are receiving medical care, Rambo prepares to leave the camp. Trautman informs him that he's received a second Medal of Honor and asks where he is going now that he is free. Rambo replies that he will be staying in Vietnam where all his friends died. Trautman agrees that the war was wrong but warns Rambo not to hate his country for it. "Hate?", Rambo replies, "I'd die for it. What I want...and every other guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had wants...is for our country to love us as much as we love it." In the final scene, Trautman asks how he will live, and Rambo replies, "Day by day," before walking off. First of all Murdock intentionally sent Rambo to a camp that he believed was empty, his ultimate goal was for Rambo to take pictures of an empty camp so that he could have documented proof that there were no POWs left in Vietnam and therefore Congress and the POWs families would back off about having to find them. In the context of the film, there was a secret deal between the United States and the then-North Vietnamese government in 1972 to release their American POWs by ransom. In order to save some money Murdock stopped the ransom payments from being sent to North Vietnam at some point and the payments that were already sent were not enough to pay for the release of all POWs, leaving many American soldiers still held captive in communist controlled Vietnam long after the war's conclusion. Furthermore if it were discovered that the Vietnamese were still holding POWs, Congress would have immediately resumed the ransom payments to the Vietnamese government in order to release them, possibly costing the United States government millions of dollars in tax payer's money to finish the 1972 ransom deal. Essentially Murdock wanted to be able to tell Congress that he tried and was unable to find any POWs left in Vietnam in order to save a little money which he believes will be supporting the Cold War enemy if sent to Communist Vietnam. If it turned out that Rambo returned with pictures that showed American POWs at the camp then Murdock more than likely was going to "lose" them or digitally alter them to remove the POWs. It would be his word against Rambo's word (at the time an ex-con) and people were more likely to believe Murdock over Rambo. However Rambo didn't take pictures, instead he took one of the POWs with him and Murdock knew there was no way he could ever keep the POW from telling the media that there were still men out there so Murdock therefore had to abandon Rambo and the POW. Ericson was ordered by Murdock to betray Rambo by flying off and leaving Rambo and the POW behind and a reluctant Ericson did as he was told. The pilot's reluctance didn't matter to Rambo. • Captain Vinh: Burned alive in the rice field<br/><br/>• Lieutenant Tay: Blown up by explosive arrow<br/><br/>• Sergeant Yushin: Thrown out of helicopter<br/><br/>• Lieutenant Colonel Padovsky: Blown up by RPG<br/><br/>• Ericson: Hit in the groin with M60E machine gun<br/><br/>• Murdoch: Threatened by Rambo with knife<br/><br/>Strangely enough however Lifer (the mercenary who pulled a gun on Trautman preventing him from picking Rambo up) is never brought to justice. By far the biggest red flag in terms of the content is the violence. While there is a very high body count there is very little blood or gore and it seems like this would be standard PG-13 level violence (keep in mind that films like Star Wars also have very high body counts yet are nowhere near R-rated material). However along with the violence the film does contain one usage of the word "fuck" along with other usages of "goddamn" and "bastard". There is also a shot of Stallone's rear end along with references to prostitutes but what probably pushes this film into the R-rating is the emotional intensity. At one point in the film Rambo is condemned to spend the rest of his life in the same POW camp he was a prisoner of during the war (he only would have had to serve 5 more years in an American prison had he not accepted the mission), he is submerged up to his chin in a bog of pig feces and is covered by leaches. On top of that the film depicts POWs suffering in deplorable conditions and it is revealed that they have been living there for over a decade. When you add in the torture scene (there is no blood but still disturbing) it produces a very mild R-rated film.<br/><br/>What is very interesting however is that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom came out the previous year with a PG rating despite being slightly more graphic and violent than Rambo: First Blood Part II. It was also just as emotionally intense as it featured innocent children turned into slaves who were frequently beaten with whips, at one point a young boy begs for death and of course there is the infamous "heart" scene. There was also a torture scene that was considerably more graphic than the "electrocution" scene in Rambo: First Blood Part II (Indy is beaten with his own whip and receives numerous welts on his back with blood oozing out). However Temple of Doom had little to no profanity (one usage of "shit'), no nudity and only very mild sexual references. It is also wildly rumored that if Temple of Doom had been made by anyone other than Spielberg and Lucas it would have been slapped with an R-rating.