{"id":42936,"date":"2026-10-16T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T11:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42936"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:14:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T17:14:37","slug":"42936","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=42936","title":{"rendered":"“Rambo” (2008) directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rambo <\/i>(2008)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Sylvester Stallone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Screenplay: \u00a0Art Monterastelli, Sylvester Stallone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stars:\u00a0 Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Matthew Marsden, Graham McTavish, Rey Gallegos, Tim Kang, Jake La Botz, Maung Maung Khin <\/strong>and Ken Howard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tagline: Live for nothing, or die for something.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Plot…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Twenty years have passed since Rambo’s rescue of Colonel Trautman in Afghanistan.\u00a0 Rambo makes his living as a snake catcher and ferryman.<\/p>\n

When Michael Burnett approaches Rambo to take his missionary group up river, Rambo refuses. Burnett wants to go into a war zone to render humanitarian aide to villagers brutalized by the Burmese Army.\u00a0 Burnett’s fianc\u00e9e, Sarah, makes an appeal to Rambo, but he again refuses.\u00a0 Burnett’s group believes in nonviolence.\u00a0 They’re traveling without weapons or additional security.\u00a0 Odds would be against their survival.<\/p>\n

Later that night Sarah speaks to Rambo again.\u00a0 Burnett’s group is going with or without him.\u00a0 Against his better judgment, Rambo agrees to take them up river, drop them off and return home.<\/p>\n

Not long after, Arthur Marsh informs Rambo that Burnett’s group are held prisoner by Burmese soldiers.\u00a0 Marsh has hired mercenaries to rescue them.\u00a0 He wants Rambo to take the mercs up river.<\/p>\n

Rambo agrees.\u00a0 But this time, Rambo’s not just doing a drop off.\u00a0 This time, he’s going to war.<\/p>\n

Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rambo’s creator, David Morrell had this to say about the movie: “I’m happy to report that overall I’m pleased. The level of violence might not be for everyone, but it has a serious intent. This is the first time that the tone of my novel FIRST BLOOD has been used in any of the movies. It’s spot-on in terms of how I imagined the character – angry, burned-out, and filled with self-disgust because Rambo hates what he is and yet knows it’s the only thing he does well.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Rambo<\/em>, like Rocky Balboa<\/em> is such a great bookend to its franchise.\u00a0 While it is true that each had more movies to come, at the time it was thought that each would end the series.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite John Rambo scenes is when the river pirates stop the group.\u00a0 Stallone’s direction, shows Rambo silently assessing the situation.\u00a0 Rambo determines the greatest dangers and the order he needs to eliminate them.\u00a0 I also love the scene when Sarah returns in the pouring rain to try to convince Rambo to take them up river.<\/p>\n

I know it’s sacrilege, but if push came to shove, I’d pick Rambo<\/em> over First Blood<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rambo <\/i>(2008)<\/strong> rates 5 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rambo (2008) Director: Sylvester Stallone Screenplay: \u00a0Art Monterastelli, Sylvester Stallone Stars:\u00a0 Sylvester Stallone, Julie Benz, Paul Schulze, Matthew Marsden, Graham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[61,52,17,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-books","category-celebs","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42936"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43068,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42936\/revisions\/43068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}