Rambo: First Blood review

 Number 660 on the top 1000 films of all time is the action film 'Rambo: First Blood.'

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is a Vietnam war veteran with severe PTSD. He tries to pick up the broken pieces of his former life but soon, undeservedly, runs afoul of the local police department led by the overzealous Sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy.) After the cops chase him into the local mountains, Rambo must use all the skills he learned in Vietnam to survive.

I try to come into watching every film with an open mind. However, I was not expecting to like Rambo at all. I thought it would be just another of the generic, high-octane, maximum explosions, minimal characterisation popcorn flicks of the eighties. I was happy to say that I was proven wrong. Don't get me wrong...First Blood was everything I just described but it was also very entertaining. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. 

The initial part of the film was high on suspense. Unlike other action films, it wasn't bogged down in cheesy dialogue and endless explosions (I think Stallone only had 400 words of dialogue.) After he escapes from police custody and chased into the mountains, armed only with a knife, Stallone has to use his wits to survive. He fashions all manner of booby-traps to take out the cruel and prejudiced police officers. It was enjoyable watching an action character use his brains rather than brute strength to survive. Just like Rocky, John Rambo was a true underdog that you really want to root for.

I would argue Rambo isn't the deepest of characters - he is suffering from PTSD due to the torture he received in Vietnam - but he didn't need to be either. Rambo has minimal dialogue throughout the film, as his action speak very much for him. This is probably for the best as Stallone isn't really known for his acting ability. He is more known for just being a big meathead.

The film's short runtime of ninety minutes was definitely a huge benefit too. The shorter run-time really allowed director Ted Kotcheff to focus in on the core storyline of the film - Rambo's private war with a whole police department. There was no space for cheesy dialogue, endless explosions and gunfire or gratuitous slow-motion. Perhaps it helped that the film's script was rewritten and edited almost endlessly. This helped to cut out most of the narrative fluff.

First Blood was released to mix-reviews only to be critically reassessed as a pioneering action film of the eighties. I 100% agree with this assessment. It might not be a cinematic classic in the same vein studied endlessly in film schools like Citizen Kane or Stalker, but neither did it needed to be. It was just an entertaining popcorn flick. 

The Last Temptation of Christ review

 Number 659 on the top 1000 films of all time is Martin Scorsesee's epic religious-drama 'The Last Temptation of Christ.'

'The Last Temptation of Christ' is a semi-fictionalised retelling of the last days of Jesus Christ (Wilhelm Defoe) after he is betrayed by Judas (Harvey Keitel.) It portrays Jesus as battling against different temptations like love, sex and the devil himself.

Last Temptation felt like the wet fever dream of an American White Christian Nationalist. And Defoe's portrayal of Jesus Christ was like a crazed televangelist. Everything was just too surreal and bizarre to really take seriously. Although I enjoyed the original score which brought together traditional instrumentation and musicians from Pakistan, Egypt, Turkiye and Armenia, they sounded like something I would hear in the throes of a fever.

This was only exacerbated with Defoe's very peculiar portrayal of Christ, not as some benevolent saviour of humanity, but as a revolutionary who would bring about the revelation whether humanity was prepared for it or not. It was all very much this is my army and this is my revolution. I'm almost surprised that he didn't go all Pete Hegseth and start talking about holy wars, warriors and crusades. However, perhaps some of this might be down to the writing.

Last Temptation was based on Nikos Kazantzaki' book of the same name. It was adapted by screenwriter Paul Schrader. Despite how he received the credit, most of his script, including all the dialogue was rewritten by Scorsesee himself as well as fellow writer Jay Cocks. Perhaps that's why all of the dialogue seemed over-the-top.

The film was also over-long at almost three hours with the last part of the film acting as a superfluously long denoument/epilogue. Of course, Scorsesee is the same director who went onto to direct the marathon-long 'The Irishman,' so long films shouldn't be a surprise to me. Yet the length of Last Temptatin wasn't justified. And the ending just stretched on forever. 

It was a bit like LOTR with its ten endings. Don't get me wrong, LOTR will always be a GOAT of cinema, but did we need ten endings? Similarly here, did we need a fever dream ending on top of a fever-dream film? Too many dreams. Too much dreaming. It was like I was watching Inception again.

This isn't even getting into all of the controversy about the film. Last Temptation severely angered the Catholic church for portraying Jesus getting it on with Mary Magadelene, but just like the film itself, this review is becoming long and surreal. I'll finish it by saying I didn't care for this film at all.

One Battle After Another review

 One Battle After Another (OBAA) is too young to feature on the 2015 edition of the top 1000 films of all time, but it won a whole slieu of Oscars at the 2025 ceremony including Best Picture, Director, Writing - all for Paul Thomas Anderson - and Best Supporting Actor - so I just had to watch this film.

Pat Calhoun (Leonardo Dicaprio) is a washed-up, former revolutionary who used to be the scourge of right-wing governments ever by leading the activity/terrorist group 'the French 75.' Sixteen years after a devastating defeat, Calhoun is a paranoid stoner living off-grid with his step-daughter Charlene (Chase Infiniti. Charlene's mother? Another member of the French 75- Perfidia (Teyana Taylor.) Captured by the tyrannical Colonel Steven Lockjaw - she was given the choice of imprisonent or freedom and sleeping with him. She chose the latter before disappearing into witness protection. However, when Lockjaw returns to threaten Charlene, Calhoun is forced to come out of retirement along with the help of Charlene's karate teacher Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro.)

If you're going to watch this film, then I would recommend to be patient. Paul Thomas Anderson is not known for his long films - just like Magnolia and There Will be Blood - OBAA is over two and a half hours. It also takes a while to get going. The first thirty minutes shows the vicious actions of the French 75 as they cause chaos attacking government facilities and robbing city banks. It was all accompanied with pretty cheesy and cringy dialogue.

But if you get past the thirty minutes, you will be rewarded with a thrilling film. It starred Leonardo Dicaprio in one of his most unlikely roles ever. You see Leo Dicaprio as the star and you would expect him to be the one shooting at all the bad guys and taking the glory, but, if anything, it's every other character that shows heroism. Calhoun is merely a paranoid shell of his former revolutionary self. Don't get me wrong, Dicaprio did the paranoia well, but I kept expecting him to snap out of it and for him to become a hero. 

Yet that never really happened. Dicaprio did get a Best Actor nod, although I'm not sure if his role was worthy of such an honour. Although I would say that he was very funny in this film - this was probably one of his funniest film roles especially when he is trying and failing to remember all of the secret codes the French 75 used to communicate with each other. 

I cannot deny anything from the always terrific Sean Penn who won Best Supporting Actor for playing Steven Lockjaw - this was his third Oscar too. He beat out fellow co-star Benicio Del Toro - more on him later. Lockjaw was a great character and Penn played him well. He played him with enough ferocity to make him scary, but with enough restraint not to turn him into a cartoon. A deserving win indeed.

Del Toro would have also been well-deserving of a second Best Supporting Oscar win. His character of Sergio soon becomes one of Calhoun's biggest allies and I enjoyed seeing the two characters play off each other. It was a fun role played with lots of levity. But enough with the men, the women were great too. 

This was Chase Infiniti's debut role and she had great chemistry with Dicaprio, as she played his adoptive daughter. It was also great seeing her and all the other women characters like Perfidia getting stuck in the action. I feel like in modern films there's always a disingenuous need to showing "strong female characters who don't need no man," yet in OBAA, Charlene and Perfidia came across as nothing but genuine and authentic.

Prior to OBAA, Paul Thomas Anderson was probably one of the best directors not to have won any Oscars -  before OBAA, he currently had zero Oscars out of eleven nominations. However, this was remedied as OBAA netted him three Oscars. He really proved he was a master of his craft with some terrific cinematography especially in the film's climatic chase sequence.

Like I say, OBAA is too young to feature on any top 1000 films of all time list. Surely, it will feature on future editions. But that isn't the question. Was it truly worthy of the Best Film Oscar? I'm not so sure. It was a good film ... maybe even great. But best? I don't know... 

L'emmerdeur review

 L'emmerdeur is a 1973 French black-comedy which does not feature on the top 1000 films of all time.

Ralph Milan (Lino Ventura) is a contract killer preparing to assassinate his target in a hotel room. The only catch? The neighbour in the adjourning room - shirt salesman Francois Pignon (Jacques Brel) - is making preparations to kill himself. Milan has to stop his neighbour from suiciding otherwise the police will catch him in the act.

This film was a complete farce. It was a ridiculous scenario with ridiculous characters yet everything worked so well. It was a very funny film with oodles of black humour that are so popular in France or the UK. I can't see a film like this really having any success in the US. In fact Billy Wilder did do an American remake with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau which came and went without much fanfare.

Milan and Brel made the ultimate odd couple trope with Milan being forced to become a reluctant hero of sorts - he has to stop Brel killing himself, not out of any sense of altruism, but for his own devious means. Most of the humour stems from this comical situation. Pignon irritates the life out of Milan who has no choice but to tolerate it or be exposed by the police.

Just like the characters, the actors also were great together. Ventura served as a brilliant straight man to the comically and tragically pathetic Brel who is heartbroken after his wife leaves him. There is no assortment of both physical humour and witty tongue-in-cheek jokes yet there is also plenty of space for emotional pathos. Despite how Milan initially has nothing but contempt for Brel, we see a begrudging relationship form between the two men. 

L'emmerdeur was a thoroughly entertaining film. Silly and farcical yes, but very funny all the same.

Kelly's Heroes review

 Number 654 on the top 1000 films of all time is the war-comedy drama 'Kelly's Heroes.'

Private Kelly (Clint Eastwood) is a disgraced soldier in a WW2 infantry unit. However, he soon discovers that the Nazis are hiding a huge cache of gold. He rallies together a posse of fellow disillusioned soldiers such as Sergeant Big Joe (Telly Savalas) supply Sergeant 'Crapgame' (Don Rickles) and eclectic hippie 'Oddball' (Donald Sutherland) to steal the gold for themselves.

As far as war-comedy dramas go, Kelly's Heroes very much came and went without much impact. Obviously for me and not for the all people who voted it as the 654th best film of all time. Let's just start with the Clint Eastwood-shaped elephant in the room. As you've heard me say ad nauseum, I don't rate Clint Eastwood as an actor at all. As an old man - he always plays the same old role - a grumpy old man. The same very much applies when he was a young man too. In Kelly's Heroes, he played the usual dry, laconic and sarcastic wiseass. It wore thin twenty films ago.

I didn't much care for the sprawling ensemble cast either. There wasn't really one memorable character or somebody I really wanted to root for. If you really pushed me, maybe I would say I liked Oddball the best - Donald Sutherland was quite enjoyable in the role - although I'm not sure how much an eclectic hippie like Oddball would survive in the army. As for everybody else? Telly Savales...Don Rickles weren't particularly memorable. 

The film is also labelled as a comedy too. I didn't find it particularly memorable - I guess most of the humour was supposed to come from the strange mix of characters, but I didn't laugh all that much. It functioned much more effectively as a war drama.

All in all, Kelly's Heroes was really nothing special.