Saving Private Ryan would have to be up there too.
Ah. Now there’s a possibility. I’ve always written off The Pizzle of the Chrizzle as torture porn in fancy dress (which of course it is), but taking Gibson at his word (that it isn’t), it would have to be considered mainstream. So we may have a movie that comes close to Rambo for gore, while not being explicitly made for no other purpose.
Have you seen Rambo? IMO there’s no comparison. If you’ve seen Rambo, I’d love to hear you elucidate. But if not, trust me, just trust me. 
Maybe you should have been a little clearer in your OP - “This is my opinion. Agree with it.” Because otherwise we’re going to make the mistake of thinking you actually wanted to discuss whether or not Rambo is the most violent mainstream movie ever made. We keep giving examples of other movies that might be more violent and you keep redefining your terms to exclude any counterexamples. Which is a no true Scotsman argument.
I’ve seen it. I don’t think it has anything more graphic than Ryan, just more quantity of it.
Dude, I know what it means. But thanks for being so patronizing.
And I don’t keep redefining anything. I’ve clarified where assumptions were made that led to a lack of clarity, but i’m not “redefining” anything. I’ve said that, for the purposes of this discussion, any movie that was made specifically to appeal to the audience that is looking for nothing but torture/gore porn–extreme horror genre films–are not “mainstream.” I’m sorry if you insist on giving the word *mainstream *the wobbliest possible non-definition (if it includes ANY movie ever made) of a definition, and I’m sorrier still that you insist on prolonging this hijack. But I think I’ve made it clear enough that extreme genre movies that appeal to a specific audience are NOT included in my use of the word “mainstream” in this context. Clarifying that for people who refuse to read for comprehension and who insist on diverting the thread back, over and over again, to this hijack, is NOT redefining the word, by any stretch.
Now, if you simply cannot participate in a discussion which uses the word “mainstream” in a manner that you’re not particularly comfortable with, THEN DON’T PARTICIPATE.
END OF HIJACK PLEASE–start a thread discussing the limits/inclusions of the word “mainstream” if you want to discuss it further.
(And “keep giving”? All I’ve excluded from the rubric are extreme-horror genre films like the *Saw *Cycle. It’s clearer and clearer that you’re not really reading this thread; you’re just determined to pick a fight where there is none. Please take it somewhere else.)
don’t know if its considered a mainstream movie, but theres no doubt in my mind that “The Exterminator” from 1980 is the most violent “mainstream movie”
This movie isn’t just violent, but also cruel and gory. A bit over the top if you ask me
Hmm. I’d have to say the bloody fragments of shredded child that splat against the camera lens are more extreme than anything SPR had to offer. Then of course there’s the MORE factor.
So far, I think The Passion is in the running, but I have to disagree that *SPR *or *ST *come anywhere near the mark. I mean, I can show ST in the store, after like 9pm, with no sense that I’m going to garner complaints from customers. But even my coworker Eric, who prides himself on disregarding ratings for ANY movie–he thinks I’m a pussy for reminding parents with small children that *Pan’s Labyrinth *is not for kids–he wouldn’t play *Rambo *in the store after 10pm, and he LOVES the movie. Just based on the violence factor. He plays Riki Oh in the store, for god’s sake.
Maybe I should watch SPR again to be sure, but I hate Spielberg too much. Still, if I manage to hit STOP before the morphing bit at the end, thus saving myself a throwup . . .
Hmm. Don’t know it. I’ll check it out. Glancing at imdb, it looks pretty B-movie/exploitation; not terribly mainstream. Still, it looks interesting.
By that definition, maybe Rambo itself shouldn’t be considered “mainstream.” I mean, if Saw isn’t mainstream because the people who want to see it aren’t interested in plot or character, and just want violence, then the entire Rambo franchise seems targeted at a similarly narrow audience: people who just want to see Rambo totally blow the shit out of some dudes. Action porn, if you will, as opposed to torture porn.
Yes I’ve seen Rambo, it was one of the most fun nights at the movies I’d had in a long time. Why? Because it was so completely over-the-top violent. Rambo became a live action cartoon, much like the ultra-violent Mortal Kombat games lose their punch when unrealistic geysers of blood squirt out of the fighters, so too does Rambo when he punches someone and they practically explode.
I thought A History of Violence was more violent because of how immediate the violence was. It wasn’t a geyser of blood dressed up as war, it was the top of someone’s head getting sheared off because that’s what happens at point blank range.
And Starship Troopers is just gory, there’s no two ways about it. Limbs are lost, blood is sprayed and a guy gets brain sucked in graphic detail.
I also noticed you ignored the Final Destination movies. Why? Every movie in the series made more at the box office than Rambo, making them “mainstream.” Haved you seen the series? The deaths are very violent and bloody.
I’ve only seen the first Final Destination movie, and I don’t remember any imagery approaching the violence of Rambo. Even beyond the gore, there’s the over the top cruelty of landmine roulette, feeding the pig, etc. But mostly there’s the gore: not simply splatters of red, but carefully thought out and choreographed moments of the rending apart of human bodies; I’ve never had such a vivid sense of the actual physical violence that’s done to a body by a bullet or a blade. I think of the FD movies as being about sudden violence, but not vivid violence.Maybe I’ll get around to the sequels at some point.
But the violence in ST is just so cartoony that I can’t put it in the same ballpark, IMO again, as the “serious” violence in Rambo. The violence in ST was done for laughs; certainly not the case in Rambo. Still, those moments in ST are pretty extreme. (Note to self: order ST on bluray . . .)
And while the moments of violence in A History were certainly intense, it doesn’t give you the unrelenting feeling that Rambo does. Or me, anyway. Maybe it’s just that the images that stay with me from AHoV aren’t the images of physical violence; more the scenes of emotional violence. I don’t know; might be time to watch that again too.
Ah. Each FD movie gets progressively gorier than the one before it.
Understand, I don’t doubt that there are movies where there’s a moment of isolated violence that equals an isolated moment from Rambo. But I’ve never experience such an overwhelming onslaught of A) extreme and B) unrelenting violence. There are certainly moments in many of the movies mentioned–with, of course, varying degrees of cartoonishness–that approach Rambo for level of violence in any given moment. But, with the possible exception of Passion, so far I haven’t seen a movie mentioned that equals Rambo on both points. IMO.
So, beyond whether I personally agree or not, what’s the consensus of what IS the most violent mainstream movie ever made? (And again, by mainstream I basically mean a movie with big-Hollywood backing, made for a big Hollywood production company, with “bankable” star, etc., intended to be marketed as a blockbuster–you get the idea: Hollywood “product.” And again, for the purposes of this discussion I have excluded films whose singleminded raison d’etre is gore/torture-porn titillation, like extreme horror films. Although a list of those might be interesting too.)
Keeping in mind my two main criteria: extremity of violence, and unrelentingness of violence, what’s your, say, top 5?
Yes. Rambo is the most violent mainstream movie ever. i agree with you, Lissener, 100%. Violent, and mainstream; the most of each, in any one place, in the history of ever.
I can’t compare Rambo to any other film, not having seen it, but I’m surprised to see that Robocop hasn’t been mentioned yet. I don’t know that it can compare in this thread, but the violence was pretty over the top, and pretty unrelenting. Certainly it made more of an impression for being unrelenting on me than SPR had.
“Violence” needs to be defined, just as “pornography.” I’ve seen one Rambo movie (I think the first), and I have no reason to see another (It was pretty unmemorable). But its violence was pretty much “unaffective.” That is to say, it didn’t bother me to watch it. But one movie, Old Boy, was probably the only movie where I just couldn’t watch some parts of it. There’s a scene where the main character cuts off his own tongue with a pair of scissors.
Whether it’s “mainstream” or not also needs to be defined. It won the “Grand Prix” at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, but maybe that doesn’t matter to you.l
I was widely considered as a video nasty in Europe in the 80s and 90s. It was either banned or released in a heavily cut version
her are Roger Erberts review of the movie in 1980: *“The Exterminator” is a sick example of the almost unbelievable descent into gruesome savagery in American movies. It’s a direct rip-off of “Death Wish,” a 1974 Charles Bronson hit about a man who kills muggers to avenge the death of his wife.
What’s profoundly disturbing about the film is that it uses this “justification” in the plot as an excuse for revenge scenes of the sickest possible perversion. The motive is obviously to shock or titillate the audience, not to show plausible actions by the character. For example: Ginty gets one gang member to talk by tying him to a wall and threatening him with an acetylene torch. Then he machine-guns the men who attacked his buddy.
They get off easy. Determined to get money to support the family of his paralyzed friend, Ginty kidnaps a Mafia boss. He hangs him by chains over a huge meat grinder, goes to rob his house and then lowers the man into the grinder, converting him to ground meat. He justifies this crime in a letter to anchorman Roger Grimsby (who plays himself—to his horror, no doubt, when he saw this film). And then he goes on a one-man vigilante campaign to clean up New York. *
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19800307/REVIEWS/51114005/1023