Giving his toughest performance since Rocky, Sylvester Stallone stars as a larger-than-life super warrior in this gutsy action thriller filmed in the wilds of western Canada. He plays an ex-Green Beret, a peacetime misfit haunted by memories of Vietnam. Falling foul of an over-zealous small town sheriff, all hell is let loose as he goes on the run. In the life or death manhunt that ensues, he will need all his old skills to stay alive and outwit his pursuers: the sheriff, his posse, and more than 200 National Guardsmen.

Review

It's easy to forget that this Spartan, violent film, which begat the Rambo series, was such a big hit in 1982 because it was a good movie. Green Beret vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanders into the wrong small town to find a fellow 'Nam buddy and gets the living heck kicked out of him by the local law enforcement (led by Brian Dennehy). The vet strikes back the only way he knows how, leading to a visceral, if unrealistic, flight and fight through the local mountains. Based on the 1972 novel by David Morrell, this film saved Stallone's then-foundering career and the Rambo character became the inspiration for countless political cartoons. But this film is Deliverance without the moral ambiguity. --Keith Simanton