John Rambo – First Blood
What a lot of people remember about Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is the badass super soldier who could single handedly take down any number of enemies with only a machine gun and a knife, embodying the American spirit in the process. What people forget, however, is that in his first adventure, First Blood, John Rambo isn’t a soldier: he’s an unstable Vietnam vet who goes on a rampage after being mistreated by a couple of small town cops, converting the peaceful, scenic village into a full-fledge battlefield.
Rambo’s place on this list is the one (if any) to question, as his mini-guerilla war in the woods is indicative of a full-fledged psychotic. However, star Sylvester Stallone, who also co-wrote the script, toned down the violence which, along with Stallone’s performance, converted John Rambo into an abused and misinterpreted warrior rather than a PTSD-infested villain.
With that said, no amount of drawn sympathy, or even the fact that this small town of Hope, Washington seems to be filled with tyrannical and vicious citizens can separate the Vietnam vet from his hellish actions. Rambo’s power is so threatening that his former commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), flies in to warn the citizens that they have let the dog out.
Technically speaking, Rambo is a vigilante. A misinterpreted one indeed, but a vigilante, nonetheless. Though he’s not the one who started the fight, his battle against the Hope police department irresponsibly endangered innocent people’s lives, and as a former Green Beret – even if he is a damaged one – Rambo should have been able to (and here comes the devil’s advocate) prevent that kind of overreaction.
