They drew first blood not me

Up next is the Vietnam veteran himself, John Rambo.

At first glance, average action movie muscle man, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), goes around causing mayhem but there’s more than meets the eye.

The film opens up with Rambo going to visit a friend he had during the war only to find out he had died from cancer from exposure to chemicals during the war. We already understand that Stallone’s alone, so we sympathize with him as we see that he walks down a road, with no one by his side.

Rambo continues walking till he finds a small town in Washington. He meets the town's Sheriff, Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) who is suspicious of Rambo and tells him to not return after giving him a ride. This sets up the conflict as Rambo means no harm and attempts to walk back for some food only to get arrested. We, the audience, feel like Rambo is being judged because he is an outsider and the police don't really know him. Our blood only continues to boil when they abuse Rambo at the police station. When they try to dry shave Rambo with a straight razor it triggers flashbacks of being a POW during the war. The action kicks off with Rambo over powering them and escapes into the forest where the police force chases after him.

Normally in any other action film, this is where everything will start blowing up, but not here. What sets this film apart from other film is that it’s about character observation. We are studying Rambo as the film goes on, we see he is actually clever and strategically smart when he's in tactical mode.

The situation escalates when deputy Art Galt (Jack Starrett) opens fire on Rambo from  helicopter. Rambo attacks in self defense but nonlethal. Rambo throws a rock clacking the windshield startling the pilot to flee, but in doing so causes Gult to looe his balance falling out to his death. Rambo tries to surrender and be set free claiming "I didn't do anything". The police and Teasle are enrages are are more aggressive, but little do they know Rambo has had training.

Going back to being more about character study rather than effects, we see Rambo has mode makeshift traps, and decoys to throw the cops off and to wound them, not kill. Rambo holds a knife to Teasle throat saying how he could have killed them, and if they don't stop he will "Give you a war you won't believe".

We see the darker side of Rambo, as we see there is no real hero in this film. Both parties are at fault, The police shouldn't have been so hard on Rambo, abusing their power and Rambo should have just cooperated. there was no reason for the conflict to happen, but it escalates to a one man army against the police force. We feel invested as we wondering who will come out on top and aren't bothered that not one explosion has happened.

Rambo's commanding Officer Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) arrives when the national guard is called to persuade them to call off the search to diffuse him, but Teasle pushes on. We see that at least one person does care about Rambo, which reminds us that there's at least one person that cares about us.

During another attempt to capture Rambo, they believed to have killed him with a Bazooka. When night fall comes we see more of what we expect in an action movie: explosions, heavy guns, and shoot outs. We get the best of both worlds here as we have witnessed both stalk tactics and attack tactics.

Trautman tries to persuade Rambo to come with him and to be taken into custody. Rambo is more than a former veteran who knows how to shoot, we are reminded that he to is a human being with feeling and this leads up to the most emotional scene Stallone has ever preformed.

Rambo breaks down crying how he feels abandoned by the world by how civilians treat him calling him "baby killer and all sorts of vile crap". He puts us in his shoes when he talks about seeing his friends get blown up and how he can't forget it. We start getting tears in our eyes as we see even the toughest rocks have a soft spot.

It’s not often we see an action start crying in the middle of action, but this is evidence humanizes what would normally be nothing but a brute. Rambo isn’t your typical action hero, he’s still very much human like the rest of us. All his faults are products of his past, but he still continues to strive for what we all do, a better tomorrow.

the film ends with Rambo leaving with Trautman, no real winner is established. All we are left with is an empty feeling and the realization that even the bravest, strongest of souls, come with weaknesses.