As a child, growing up in a peri-urban area close to a military barracks somewhere in Nigeria, I had always come in contact with military lifestyles and military personnels from the army and naturally, we had this flare of wanting to join the army when we grow up and so, action movies got to win our hearts, my heart.
Rambo First Blood II was one movie I will live never to forget for even today, as an adult, the movie never seems to get old or boring no matter how many times I watch it and I still feel the suspense in the movie fighting scenes to this day.
The movie was a sequel to Rambo First Blood and it starred the famous American actor Sylvester Stallone who takes the name Rambo. It started with Rambo in a penal camp breaking stones. He got sent to the penal camp after wrecking havoc in a town called 'Hope' due to self defence. In this sequel, Rambo First Blood II, he was approached by his former commander in Vietnam, Colonel Trautman to undertake a mission for the US government in exchange for a Presidential pardon. The mission was to go covertly into the Vietman and take pictures, only pictures of possible American POWs still being held in there. He was asked not to engage the enemy soldiers nor attempt any rescue move. He accepted.
While in mid air over the area, his parachute got stuck, Rambo lost all of his equipment save for his knife, bow and arrows. He subsequently links up with Co, a native sent to aid him in the operation.
Rambo makes it to the camp and sees the POWs in a detrimental state and he went on to rescue one of the prisoners, Banks, who was kept in a separate cell all by himself. While escaping from enemy soldiers, they got onto a boat run by pirates who betray them but Rambo killed them all and made it to an extraction point with Banks having been separated from Co, his local aid.
Trautman who was in a chopper with Ericson and Lifer spotted them and asked the chopper to go down for the extraction but an order came back from Murdock at the command base ordering them to ignore the duo and not to extract them. Trautman insisted but had to give up when he got a pistol pointed to his head.
Rambo was captured and later tortured by the Soviet allies of the Vietnamese enemy soldiers but while being asked to radio home to relay a warning message, he used the opportunity to let Murdock know he will be coming for him to pay back for the neglect.
Rambo managed to subdue the enemies in the room and made it to the cells where he frees all POWs including the recaptured Banks and they got a chopper which he uses to wreck havoc in the camp and he also killed the Captain of the camp (who had previously killed Co. Rambo tied his hair with a piece of her dress and put her necklace round his neck)with an arrow tipped with explosive, my favourite!! 😀
They got pursued with a more active chopper but through deception, he destroyed the enemy chopper and made it safely to the base with his chopper badly damaged.
Rambo turned the offices upside down with his machine gun and really shook down Murdock and had to hold himself back from stabbing him.
The cunning shown by Rambo while killing off his enemies in the jungle using a blend of natural camouflage and creativity really awed me. Me and my friend back then as kids do go about shirtless with red ribbon tied around our head and toy guns made from wood with mock bow and arrows straped across our backs to act more like Rambo. Whe made replica of his knives using woods and best of all, his ARROWS!
We tipped them with wax colored black to look like the explosives he attached to them.
Whenever I see anything related to this movie, I remember these childhood scenes and laugh. Sometimes I feel sad too because some of my childhood friends who we played these movie scenes together with, are dead. 😢
It was a great movie, one I believe I will forever find very very very interesting.
ALL IMAGES ARE SCREENSHOTS FROM THE MOVIE