John Rambo has long been a champion against toxic masculinity and unchecked systems of power. He started out as a freedom fighter against war profiteers, small town policemen who oppress the poor and powerless, and as a vigilant crusader for mental health awareness. Now, nearly 40 years after his debut, John Rambo has proven himself to be the ultimate ally to disenfranchised minority women as well as the embodiment of righteous, left-wing rage channeled against oppression and tyrannical right-wing oppressive tyrants.
This review contains spoilers.
Last Blood introduces us to John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), now old and still battling the trauma from his youth as he digs out a tunnel system beneath his property (symbolic of the labyrinth of his mind as he battles the trauma of his long, traumatic history of combating toxic masculinity) as he takes pills for his PTSD. He took in a young Mexican girl, Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal) and raised her like a daughter and respectfully employs an older Mexican woman whom he respectfully treats as a respected equal. He doesn’t want Gabrielle to go see her father, whom her friend found in Mexico, because he wasn’t a good man and a monument to toxic masculinity and how it would be dangerous for her to be around such an evil bastard and he wishes to protect her from such rampant sexism. Yet she defies his plea and discovers her father truly is a massive monument of toxic masculinity, who left Gabrielle and her mother (as she was dying of cancer) because he felt nothing for them at all and seems to get prurient pleasure out of making his daughter cry.
Gabrielle is set up by her old friend Jezel to be abducted by the ultimate form of toxic masculinity: human traffickers. Rambo tracks down Jezel, whom he spares from his rage by simply telling her to “fuck off” after she pointed out the guy who took Gabrielle; Rambo spares Jezel because he empathizes with the harsh reality that she’s a woman living in a male-dominated patriarchal rape culture and she is socio-economically powerless to have any agency and therefore has little choice but to serve the whims of powerful men, who are inherently evil. In contrast of the sympathy he shows her, Rambo literally penetrates Gabriel’s abductors chest with the phallic butt of his knife and rips out his collarbone because John FUCKING Rambo doesn’t put up with the patriarchy.
Then there is a masterful scene where we see how pervasive the patriarchal system is as all the men in the area of where Gabrielle is being held all text each other that a powerful ally of oppressed minority women is in the area. They follow him and surround Rambo in a poignant image of how rape culture is supported and excused by other men. They then beat up Rambo, a martyr for the cause of women. One of the leaders of the human trafficking Martinez Brothers, Victor (Oscar Jaenada), pontificates to Rambo about how to him women are nothing, barely even his property – this is demonstrated in a harrowing scene where his captive women, all emaciated and bloody, witness him assault one of “his” women and says he’ll kill any woman who longs for freedom and agency – and Victor explains that in his oppressive rape culture, women are nothing but disposable commodities. He leaves Rambo alive (barely) to punish him with living with the knowledge he’s going to make an example out of Gabrielle because some ally had the gall to stand up to him…this is exactly how evil men are!
Rambo is taken care of by an independent journalist (Paz Vega) who nurses him back to health because she knows in an oppressive patriarchy she needs male allies. Her sister was a victim of the Martinez Brothers sex trade and she wants vengeance. Once Rambo is healthy, he returns to where he was assaulted and literally smashes in the raping penises of toxic masculinity with a hammer (great symbolism!) and tells the female slaves they can leave. In the most poignant moment of the film, the women he frees are so broken and fearful of the wrath of the patriarchy they are unable to flee even after such a powerful ally saves them. Rambo finds Gabrielle, but she was made an example of and dies before he can return home with her. At least she knew her Uncle John was such a loving ally to minority women in her final moments as she shed’s a tear for marginalized women everywhere. I shed tears too.
Rambo regrettably tells the Mexican house keeper he respectfully respects and sees as an equal that he no longer has a reason to employ her, but leaves her with a generous severance package (because he believes women should make more than men to make up for the years of only making 77 cents for every dollar a man makes) and implores her to go to her sister’s where she’ll be safe. It’s wonderful how much John Rambo respects and cares for these minority women.
He then returns to Mexico and assaults the home of one of the Martinez Brothers, viciously slaying everyone at that hive of toxic masculinity, and leaving Hugo Martinez in bed with his head missing, which is symbolic of being castrated. Rambo then throws Hugo’s head out the window as he drives back to America, a powerful moment by tossing a literal figurehead of rape culture to the ground like a piece of trash. GO JOHN GO!
We then see John Rambo and Victor Martinez both prepare to exact revenge. Rambo tricks out his ranch with a bunch of traps and lures the rapists and militant rape apologists into them. We, the audience, revel in Rambo systemically dismantling this patriarchal rape culture who can’t withstand the fact it’s 2019 and they suffer one bloody death at a time. We cheer and clap because we know these men are evil oppressors of women and they deserve every single pound of pain they feel and liter of blood they lose. During this final stretch of the film, Rambo truly becomes the supreme ally that impoverished, minority women need; a true liberal superhero who decimates tyranny, oppression, and the motherfucking patriarchy, one raping penis at a time! During the justified and brutal massacre, Rambo plays Five to One by The Doors, which is truly representative of John’s political leanings and how his ultimate goal to destroy the iron grip of right-wing tyrants in our society is revealed with these lyrics, a youthful and liberal battle cry against evil conservative men that’s more relevant today than ever:
The old get old
And the young get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah
We're takin' over
Come on!
When everyone is dead except for Victor, Rambo, with delectably ironic symbolism, penetrates each of Victor's limbs with phallic arrows that tack him to hard wood. Rambo then cuts out the heart of Victor, symbolic of him cutting out the heart of rape culture, and in the theatre every single one of us clapped as Victor screamed in glorious and deserved agony as he sees his evil, cold heart beat its final beat. Rambo then throws it to the dirt as he did with Victor’s brother’s head: the head of the patriarchy and the heart of rape culture have been cleft by Rambo as he becomes the ultimate ally to minority women and the ultimate freedom fighter who will endure anything and stand up to insurmountable odds to elevate the oppressed and free the enslaved.
I don’t know about you, but when I left the theatre I was so amped up to smash the patriarchy and assassinate toxic masculinity and rape culture that I wrote this review.
I rate Rambo: Last Blood 131 out of 5.
