"War is in your blood"

This is perhaps one of the finest anti-war movies today. I had the pleasure of sitting beside a crazy old man who loved the character of John Rambo more than I do. The character was arguably dated to post-Vietnam War era and nothing else.

But, War, like all other follies of mankind, is a universal. We have the same game being played as we always have, we just have new rules, new players, new playing grounds, etc. Nothing has really changed since WW2, the extension of the Empires, the Trojan War. We like to think the fights are different and that we're the good guys.

One thing that remains true throughout all these wars is that war is ugly. People are too willing to celebrate the grotesque action associated with fighting. This movie teaches you not to. At least it would if people weren't so bloody dumb.

In case you didn't know, when a rifle which can pierce armored vehicles is fired at you and it hits you in the chest—you die. You die a horrible death. The camera doesn't flinch at the violence and the special effects are only unbelievable a few times.

People who think war is cool will watch this and feel like their balls have grown and they walk about with their erections talking about how cool Rambo is. People who understand the terrible possibilities of man will walk away knowing that even Sylvester Stallone is capable of such understandings, they will be confused that other people are not.

But that's life.

Rambo is a man apart. He is at war with himself because he doesn't have a place. We raise people to be like this then we turn our backs to them when we're done with them. Vietnam war vets performed their duty and came back to protests instead of parades. I'm not arguing we celebrate their violence, merely that we could at least acknowledge the sacrifice we asked them to commit.

Rambo is war. Boil all the details out of war and he is what you have left. In this movie he comes to terms with this but his only place in society remains war-zones. This time he is sent to rescue the readily available idiots referred to in the movie as god-squatters. Rambo remains to have the honor and loyalty a perfect warrior would have but these can only be appreciated through outward manifestations of his inner turmoil.

In other words, Rambo's only purpose is killing, whether for his country or himself, and it is only reasonable to assume that Rambo or characters like him should exist. We remain animals and stronger animals are necessary to protect us from our follies.

This if addressed to the people who thought the movie was cool: This is not cool. We are not cool. Rambo is not cool. But just walk around with your erections and enlarged testicles, nobody expected less and so we're not disappointed.

Any time is a good time to watch this movie because we're always waging war. Just don't hang around the people I've sent that message to.

The first Rambo movies didn't stop wars because we like war too much. This one probably won't change anything. But its a nice gesture.