This article is about the film. For the video game, see Rambo III (video game).
| Rambo III | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
| |
| Directed by | Peter MacDonald |
| Produced by | Buzz Feitshans Mario Kassar Andrew G. Vajna |
| Screenplay by | Sylvester Stallone Sheldon Lettich |
| Based on | Characters by David Morrell |
| Starring | Sylvester Stallone Richard Crenna Marc de Jonge Kurtwood Smith Sasson Gabai Spiros Focas |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | John Stanier |
| Editing by | O. Nicholas Brown Andrew London James R. Symons Edward Warschilka |
| Studio | Carolco Pictures |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
| Release dates |
|
| Running time | 101 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $62 million [1] |
| Box office | $189,015,611 |
Rambo III is a 1988 American action film. The film depicts fictional events during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It is the third film in the Rambo series following First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II. It was in turn followed by Rambo in 2008, making it the last film in the series to feature Richard Crenna as Colonel Sam Trautman before his death in 2003.
One minute of the movie was censored in the United Kingdom.[2]
Plot[edit]
Colonel Sam Trautman (Richard Crenna) returns to Thailand to once again enlist the help of Vietnam veteran John J. Rambo (Sylvester Stallone). After witnessing Rambo win a stick fighting match, Trautman visits Rambo at a Buddhist temple under construction and asks Rambo to join him on a resupply mission for mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan. Despite showing him photos of civilians suffering under Soviet military intervention, Rambo refuses and Trautman proceeds with the mission. Soviet forces ambush Trautman's convoy, capture him, and send him to a mountain base to be interrogated by Colonel Zaysen (Marc de Jonge) and his henchman Kourov.
Rambo learns of Trautman's capture from embassy field officer Robert Griggs (Kurtwood Smith) and convinces the official to take him through a clandestine operation, though Griggs warns him that the government will deny of his existence if he is captured or killed. Rambo immediately flies to Peshawar, Pakistan and has the local arms supplier Mousa Ghani (Israeli actor Sasson Gabai) to bring him to Khost, a town in southern Afghanistan close to the Soviet base where Trautman is jailed. The mujahideen in the village, led by chieftain Masoud, are already hesitant to help Rambo in the first place, but are definitely convinced not to help him when their village is attacked by Soviet helicopters after one of Mousa's shop assistants tips off the Soviets. Aided only by Mousa and a young boy named Hamid, Rambo makes his way to the Soviet base and starts his plan to free Trautman. The first attempt is unsuccessful and Hamid and Rambo are wounded in the process while fighting a number of Russian troops. After escaping from the base, Rambo tends to Hamid's wounds and sends him and Mousa away to safety, before cauterizing his own wound.
Rambo recovers and infiltrates the base again the following day, just in time to rescue Trautman from being tortured with aflamethrower. He and Trautman rescue several other prisoners and hijacks a Hind helicopter to escape the base. However, the helicopter is damaged as it departs and soon crashes, forcing Rambo and Trautman to continue on foot while the other prisoners run off to safety after wishing Rambo and Trautman good luck. After Rambo destroys a Soviet attack helicopter with an explosive-tipped arrow, Zaysen sends Kourov and a Spetsnaz team against the two. Rambo and Trautman easily eliminate the Spetsnaz in an underground cave, but an injured Kourov surprises Rambo as he exits the cave. In the subsequent hand-to-hand fight, Rambo manages to kill Kourov. As Rambo and Trautman make their way to the Pakistani border, Zaysen blocks them with a large mechanized force and orders them to surrender. However, Masoud's mujahideen forces attack the Soviets in a cavalry charge. In the ensuing battle, in which both Trautman and Rambo are wounded, Rambo manages to commandeer a tank and kill Zaysen by machine-gunning him in his helicopter cockpit. Zaysen's helicopter then collides with Rambo's tank but Rambo survives the explosion. At the end of the battle, Rambo and Trautman say goodbye to their mujahideen friends and leave Afghanistan to go home.
Production[edit]
Some critics noted that the timing of the movie, with its unabashedly anti-Soviet tone, ran afoul of the opening of Communism to the West under Mikhail Gorbachev, which had already changed the image of the Soviet Union to a substantial degree by the time the movie was finished.[3] The 1990 Guinness World Records deemed Rambo III the most violent film ever made, with 221 acts of violence, at least 70 explosions, and over 108 characters killed on-screen. However, the body count of the fourth film in the series,Rambo, surpassed that record, with 236 kills. The Mi-24 Hind-D helicopters seen in the film are in fact modified Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma transport helicopters with fabricated bolt-on wings similar to the real Hind-Ds which were mainly used in the former Soviet bloc nations. The other helicopter depicted is a slightly reshaped Aerospatiale Gazelle.
