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Rambo Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: R (for strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults, grisly images and language) Genre: Action Theater release: January 25, 2008 by Lionsgate Directed by: Sylvester Stallone Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes Cast: Sylvester Stallone (John Rambo), Julie Benz (Sarah), Paul Schulze (Michael Burnett), Matthew Marsden (Schoolboy), Graham McTavish (Lewis), Tim Kang (En-Joo), Rey Gallegos (Diaz), Jake LaBotz (Reese), Maung Maung Khin (Tint), Ken Howard (Pastor Arthur Marsh) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

We probably need another Rambo movie like a hole in the head … or arm, or chest, or neck, or … But then, the relatively young audience that saw Rambo No. 4 with me seemed to enjoy it. (I'll get back to them in a bit.)

No one's confusing the Rambo films with high art, but the first two are still classic entries in the "one-man-army" action genre. And though the franchise has remained dormant for 20 years, Sylvester Stallone's characterization remains one of the most iconic in film history. The name is practically synonymous with G.I. Joe. (Anyone else remember the '80s action figures and cartoons? Sing along now: "Rambo … the force of freedom!")

What brings an aging action hero out of such lengthy retirement (besides the potential for big bucks)? Stallone was open to a sequel when offered the opportunity, provided that the story was meaningful. Like something involving human rights, genocide, and missionaries? Yeah right, in a Rambo movie? The popular actor/writer/director hinted at it when he talked to us about Rocky Balboa, and he's remained true to his word.

Sylvester Stallone as John Rambo

Filmed in Thailand, Rambo indeed takes place 20 years after the last film. The aging, world-weary Vietnam vet has secluded himself from civilization, fishing and selling poisonous snakes at a small village while running a longboat service on the Salween River. A group of missionaries from Colorado (New Life? Focus on the Family?) locates Rambo to charter his service. Their destination is Burma (aka Myanmar), bringing medical supplies and Bibles to the persecuted Christians there.

Rambo is naturally reluctant. The Burmese-Karen conflict is the world's longest running civil war—60 years and counting. As the prologue to the movie notes, poor Christian farmers are often the target of extermination. The missionaries would be entering a war zone. Nevertheless, Sarah (Julie Benz of TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dexter), one of the group's leaders, insists that it's not a foolhardy effort: "Trying to save a life isn't wasting your life." That's apparently enough to change Rambo's mind, proceeding to take them up river to their destination.

Two weeks later, another stranger comes knocking on Rambo's hut. It's the pastor from the Colorado church. The missionaries have gone missing, and according to reports from freedom fighters, they're still alive, but held captive by the Burmese army. However, the embassies won't get involved in such a hot spot. So the church has raised money to hire mercenaries—bringing new meaning to the term "mega-church." Rambo is asked to lead the team into Burma to locate and rescue the missionaries. Feeling some degree of responsibility—and with 45 minutes still remaining in the film—the legendary soldier accepts.

One bad guy is about to experience a wee bit of pain

Rambo the fourth has two kinds of violence in it, neither of them something you want to see if you're considering overseas mission work. I can't emphasize enough how graphic this movie is.

The first is the more disturbing kind, yet ironically the more "acceptable." I'm talking about movies like Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda, which realistically show the persecuted enduring unimaginable suffering. I personally feel some obligation in seeing such films, as they raise awareness of real events going on in the world—things that we can work toward ending as both Christians and Americans.

Stallone clearly didn't want to shy away from the horrors of genocide in Burma, pushing the film's envelope well past anything that Hotel Rwanda left out. The soldiers' favorite "game" in Rambo is to throw landmines into rice fields, forcing captives to run relays back and forth while placing bets on which will be the first/last to die. In the film's most sickening scene, the Burmese army slaughters the village where the missionaries are serving. Children are shot or thrown into flaming buildings, women are raped, limbs are dismembered, bodies are ripped to shreds from explosions—virtually no survivors, and it's all absolutely horrible to behold. But then, such violence is part of the real story in real life in Burma/Myanmar, so one could say this film is merely reporting the truth.

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