Why were they hating on John Rambo?

[Lust4Life]

In the book Rambo was an arsehole, but in the movie he’s just a traumatised loner.

The sherrif in the movie is not a bad man, and he doesn’t hate hippies.
But he does not fancy having a deadbeat drifter hanging around his town, maybe stealing chickens, breaking into garages, hassling townfolks for money and in all liklihood getting drunk and obnoxious on a regular basis.

As I recall he pays for Rambos meal and gives him a lift to get him out of his jurisdiction as quickly as possible.

Rambo still has his pride, and knows that he’s better in many ways then the stay at home losers who look down their noses at him now that he’s gone down in the world because of the sacrifices he has made.

Neither side are bad people (In the movie) but its just that the misunderstandings lead to an almost inevitable escalation of tit for tat violence/defence.

A bit like how some wars start, WW1 being the first that springs to mind.

Rambo was IMO a great and believable film but the sequels were absaloute tripe.

[muldoonthief]

@Lust4Life

In the book Rambo was an arsehole, but in the movie he’s just a traumatised loner.

The sherrif in the movie is not a bad man, and he doesn’t hate hippies.
But he does not fancy having a deadbeat drifter hanging around his town, maybe stealing chickens, breaking into garages, hassling townfolks for money and in all liklihood getting drunk and obnoxious on a regular basis.

As I recall he pays for Rambos meal and gives him a lift to get him out of his jurisdiction as quickly as possible.

Yes. He drives him to the other side of town and tells him to keep walking. As he drives off, he sees Rambo turn around and walk back towards town, so Teasle jumps out and arrest him.

And remember, earlier that same day, Rambo had found out his friend & comrade from Vietnam has died of cancer, brought on by Agent Orange (at least that’s what his mother says).

Neither side are bad people (In the movie) but its just that the misunderstandings lead to an almost inevitable escalation of tit for tat violence/defence.

I don’t agree - in the movie, Deputy Galt is a complete and utter evil asshole. He’s the one who gives Rambo a shower with a fire hose, he’s the one who has the other deputies hold him down while he shaves him dry with a straight razor, leading to Rambo’s flashback of being tortured in Vietnam. He’s the one who shoots at Rambo from a helicopter, even when Rambo has tried to surrender and is utterly helpless climbing a cliff - remember the chopper pilot tried to back off, and Galt said “Keep this chopper steady or I’ll kill you.” Without Galt, Rambo probably would have spent a day or two locked up for vagrancy, then moved on.

[Lumpy]

Small-town police are generally suspicious of scruffy-looking drifters. Then Rambo failed the attitude test. That’s usually all it takes.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@duality72

Nitpick: Rambo kills Sheriff Teasle, but is then killed by Trautman. Trautman lives.

According to his autobio, that’s the ending Kirk Douglas wanted when he was offered the Trautman role. He turned it down when it became apparent that Stallone was exercising creative control and bending the story to favour his character.

[Strassia]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

In the book, the character was described as looking basically like a hippie (and was also described as looking a lot younger than Sly did in the movie. He was called “the kid” for like the first third of the book), and I don’t believe the cops knew he was a vet. In the book he is arrested for simple vagrancy (not arbitrarily stopped and harrassed), and the jail cell sends him into a psychotic flashback. I don’t think the cops in the book even knew he was a vet.

In the book (the first book anyway), Rambo was also clearly psychotic and crazy. He was not supposed to be the heroic figure the movie turned him into. In David Morrel’s novel, Rambo is is basically a monster, but a monster created by the war. The cops aren’t bad guys in the novel, Rambo just kills them because he thinks he’s back in the shit. At the end of the book, he and Trautman (his Captain) kill each other. The whole thing is an anti-Vietnam screed. The movie distorted everything to make Rambo into a good guy, and made the cops arbitrarily nasty just to give the character justification for killing them. It looks contrived in the movie because it WAS contrived.

I don’t think he was psychotic, but he was clearly suffering from PTSD. He couldn’t stay in one place, he was hyper-vigilante, he had flashbacks and trouble controlling his urges. And it wasn’t just being thrown in a cell that caused him to finally break, it was the razor blade. That was one thing Stallone left out of his look in the movie, no scraggly beard.

I agree with those that said changing the time period did the film a disservice. The sheriff’s motivation was largely a reaction to the social changes of the 60s.

[Harvey_The_Heavy]

@Manduck

IIRC the book was set in the late 60’s in one the more red-necky parts of the US - I think in the southeast somewhere. The movie changed the setting to Washington state in the mid-70’s, where that kind of anti-hippy sentiment was less realistic.

The book was set in Kentucky IIRC.

Another great thing about the book is that even though it’s written in the third person, once Rambo escapes each chapter alternates between following Teasle and Rambo, and explaining their motivations for not letting go of the fight. Sometimes it even overlaps, with the same scene told from two points of view, so ultimately it’s up to the reader to decide who’s the good guy and who’s the maniac, and it’s not an easy decision.