First Blood (1982)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Rambo	Sylvester Stallone	½
Trautman	Richard Crenna
Sheriff Will Teasle	Brian Dennehy
State Police Capt. Dave Kern	Bill McKinney
Deputy Mitch	David Caruso

Review

This action classic is based on David Morrell's novel, but extensively modified to fit Sylvester Stallone's persona and the Reagan-era American action formula. As a character study, First Blood is close to interesting. Stallone has moments of fine acting in which he draws inspiration from Rocky Balboa. In the film's first half, it is an engaging enough movie, directed with fine pace and good, old-fashioned, one-man-army action. Of course, most of Rambo's opponents border on caricature, something that undermines the level of seriousness the film wants to add to the Rambo character. What at times wants to resemble Michael Cimino-material, is at the next all banality and cheap action. The latter vouches for good fun, at least up until a certain point. Rambo has his edge in the forest, but when the film moves into town, we start expecting Brigitte Nielsen to show up at any time.