STACK #182 Dec 2019

FILM FEATURE

stack.com.au

DID YOU KNOW? Stallone used some of his own

interactions with his daughters’ boyfriends in his script for Last Blood , for when Rambo meets his adopted granddaughter’s guy friends. “I do a thing called the ‘crushing the hand’ test. My hands are very strong so when I meet her date, I really clamp down – and they’re not ready for it and I see their faces changing colour because they wanna be Alpha Dog, and I know they’ll never forget it.”

actually see what the cops

go through every day and you

wonder why they drink so much or take their

Almost four decades after Rambo first drew blood – along with box-office gold – in First Blood , Sylvester Stallone’s elite Special Forces veteran returns for a fifth and final outing in Rambo: Last Blood . Words Gill Pringle T he franchise that turned Sylvester Stallone’s battle-scarred veteran John Rambo into an iconic action hero also, THERE WILL BE BLOOD

own lives – it’s so brutal when a friend is hit by a shotgun in the face and instead what we see is a little nick on film. “But it’s actually horrifying, so what you see in Last Blood is the real deal. What it’s like to get hit with a 50-calibre – there’s nothing left of you. So I’m trying to show how horrible war is and how you never get over it when you participate in it and once you commit to it; you are now condemned by it. I know it’s horrifying but I don’t want to fake it – if you go to a Stallone film, a Rambo film, expect to be uncomfortable when it gets to the killing fields. I love when these guys get hit by a bullet and ‘pff’. No! It takes about nine bullets to kill somebody. It’s not easy. A man or a woman fighting for their life is a very difficult thing to kill, and it’s a horrifying situation. So I just try to depict war as what war really is.” Last Blood concludes the almost 40-year-old franchise, but Stallone says that Rambo will always be a part of his heart. “Between the first one and this one, this to me is the most profound because this is as close as he’s ever gonna get to understanding what its like to be human; to really live for someone else, for love, to actually love – and when that is taken away and jeopardised – as an actor – the rage I felt… I try to incorporate what other people would feel. “I think when there’s nothing left; when you’ve ripped out a man’s heart, my god, that’s not even a man anymore. Now you’re dealing with pure feral, primitive rage – and that’s the last thing he ever wanted. He just wanted love. So this is really an important film for me and for a character that has literally gone for decades, pretty remarkable.”

• Rambo: Last Blood is out on Dec 18

the 73-year-old action hero says doesn’t get any easier. “When you’re dealing with situations like that, a lot of people accidentally get hurt – usually it’s me – because the other guys are pretty smart. “But things will come down or a beam will hit you or a flash will come very close and burn you and I’ve had them all. Someday I’m going to have a wing over at Cedars Sinai hospital – you could call it the ‘Rambo wing’ – where

perhaps more importantly, shed an early light on PTSD, depicting the character struggling with civilian life. While Rambo will always be placed firmly in Vietnam, when STACK meets Stallone, he says he hopes his films help all veterans. “Back then, it wasn’t really taken seriously,” he says of the forever-damaged soldiers returning from Vietnam. “But I think the fact that it’s forefront now in the news, that Rambo represents the younger soldier even though he’s of a different generation. They didn’t talk about it back then but, since we’re talking about it now, I think there’s a cross-collateralisation that benefits both.” Last Blood finds Rambo living a quiet life on a sprawling ranch in Arizona, which he shares with his adoptive family – Maria (Adriana Barraza) and her granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal). “He’s just so withdrawn that he cannot give affection to a cat, which is why it’s so profound; that it’s the first time he’s opened up or even hinted at love,” explains Stallone, whose new mission becomes very personal when Gabrielle

people have no hope. Bring what’s left of your body here! That’s my wing,” he laughs. “But let’s just talk about gore,” he says, suddenly serious. “There’s ‘Hollywood gore’ which is like Budweiser Lite, and then there’s the real thing and if you study it – when you

what you see in Last Blood is the real deal

is kidnapped by a Mexican cartel. In true Rambo form, Last Blood doesn’t shy away from gore and R-rated violence; something

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DECEMBER 2019

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