Count along with Rambo
4 comments January 25th, 2008
Sylvester Stallone’s new Rambo movie (called, imaginatively enough, “Rambo”) has been getting slaughtered by the critics, but that’s no surprise. What’s surprising is just how much slaughtering the movie itself is doing. According to a professor at Ohio State who saw an advance copy, the fourth movie in the “Rambo” series contains a whopping 236 onscreen killings. Given that the movie has a (mercifully) short running time of 93 minutes, that averages out to more than 2.5 deaths per minute, or one death every 24 seconds.
Depending on your reading speed, a couple of “Rambo” badguys bit the bullet (possibly quite literally) while you read that last paragraph. In other words, “Rambo” sounds like perfect family viewing — take the kids and let them count along. It might even sharpen their math skills.
It’s hard to believe that in the first “Rambo” movie, 1982’s remarkably restrained “First Blood,” a mere four characters met their maker, and most of them did so accidentally. It’s even harder to believe that originally, the script had John Rambo die at the end.
Sure, it would’ve been a downer, but just think how many fictional lives would’ve been saved.
