Rambo (2008)

Rambo arrived in 2008 as the fourth installment in a franchise that had already outlived its Cold War pretext, and it carries itself with the grim satisfaction of a machine that knows exactly what it is for. Stallone directs himself as a burned-out snake catcher on the Salween River, drawn back into the world by Christian aid workers who need passage into Burma. What follows is a sustained act of humanitarian outrage expressed almost entirely through dismemberment. The Burmese military razes villages, enslaves women, drafts children, and forces prisoners across minefields for sport. The film's objection to these crimes is sincere and loud, though it arrives via machete instead of dialogue, a delivery system of limited persuasive value.

On the ledger of contemporary social consciousness, the film is nearly empty, and it does not appear to mind. Julie Benz's Sarah gets a handful of firm lines and a moral function, then becomes a hostage to be retrieved. The franchise's masculine architecture remains undisturbed. A real Karen freedom fighter plays the chief villain, lending authenticity without constituting the kind of casting gesture that earns credit in this column. There is no LGBTQ content, no environmental theme, no interest in body image, and no framing of Rambo's PTSD as an identity to be affirmed. The mercenaries chase money, and the film regards them with mild amusement instead of indictment.

Racial politics here are of an older, unexamined sort: Burmese soldiers rendered as uniformly sadistic, a white American as the instrument of rescue. The anger is real. The framework is 1985 with better squibs. Dedicated to Richard Crenna, and to a version of the action picture that requires no permission slip.