Genre Essay - First Blood

                           

                              


Analysing the characteristics of the action thriller genre from the trailer for First Blood (1982)


The trailer for First Blood is typical of the action thriller genre. The first part of this trailer suggests that the main character, John Rambo, has returned home from the Vietnam war because of his clothes. The character wears a worn military jacket with the American flag emblazoned on the front, signifying that this character is a patriot and a loyal American. When he is approached by the sheriff of a small town as he passes through, the music becomes tenser through the bass line. This sheriff appears to the audience as a threat to Rambo, because he is positioned safe within his car unlike Rambo – stood up outside and distant. We sense that the sheriff is untrustworthy. This occurrence adds to the theme of ‘distrust of authority’ present in the trailer, often cited as a key theme of the action thriller. Typically, the police and other governmental bodies cannot be relied on because they have ulterior motives and cannot understand the main character’s motivations. 

Rambo is described by the narrator of the trailer as ‘a drifter’, without any criminal alliance.

Often in the action thriller genre a character lives a normal life, but this life is taken away because of some sort of mistake – they may be framed or mistaken for another person, reducing them to the threat of a criminal. In a later shot, Rambo gives in to the demands of the sheriff and doesn’t act out at the police station; instead, stone-faced at the reveal of a combat knife. This iconography represents that the character, even when without the threat of danger, is alert to any sort of threat. This perhaps hints that the character hasn’t moved on from the war. In the next shot, another police officer is featured in close-up threatening Rambo and then a reverse shot showing Rambo with a gun to his throat. The juxtaposition of the American flag on his jacket and the gun to his throat may be somewhat allegorical of the treatment of Vietnam veterans at home, stripping them of their rights and punishing those that served their country patriotically.

As our main character is stripped of his clothes, hosed and beaten by the police we see his scars. Characters in action thrillers usually have a dark past and they aren’t quick to bring it up; Rambo’s scars are another indicator of this past. They hold him back and begin to ready a cutthroat knife to shave Rambo. A close-up is used on the knife as it is sharpened, again when presented to Rambo out of focus behind it and finally on the officer ready to shave him. This gives the audience a look inside the character’s psyche and how claustrophobic and trapped he is, focusing on the threat of the knife. After he breaks free, we are shown a clip from further on in the film as Rambo appears in the woods wearing a paper sheet for a shirt. This change of clothes signifies his transformation from a simple drifter to something altogether more primal and instinctive; as this character is shown in the woods, running. The convention of escaping the police force and evading officers in a rural setting is common among the genre.

The next shot introduces the binary opposition of the primal versus the new. This is shown through the mise-en-scene when Rambo looks over a cliff top only to stamp his feet in rage as the police swarm from above brandishing guns. This signifies the difference in tactics between the more instinctive main character and the police using old-fashioned weaponry and brute force to find him. The shot of the police is also a low-angle one, suggesting their dominance in this chase. His camouflaged face appears and grabs the sheriff, now showing that Rambo has become one with the woods and is unstoppable because he can’t be seen.

Back at the police station, an older man dressed in a beret and trench coat follows the sheriff saying “You and all your men couldn’t handle him before, now what makes you think you can handle him now?”, emphasising Rambo’s superiority. The older man appears worn and also associated with the military because of his beret but also of a more authoritative role because of his tie and older age than Rambo. This speech also suggests that the man and our main character have history. There are then multiple cross cuts between explosions of cars and buildings, then showing Rambo running by various lit signposts for stores and companies. This shot may seek to emphasise the effect that the main character is having on the small town, which may be like the audience’s own and producing a different side to the character. Perhaps he is in fact villainous as well as heroic. It elicits empathy with the town as well as scorn for the corrupt sheriff who runs it.

The actor Sylvester Stallone is commonly associated with action roles, consistent with his masculine physique suitable for high-octane roles of military heroes but also with the character Rocky – a boxer. Before this film he will have been known as the actor behind Rocky, further cementing the actor as a primarily drama/action actor able to pull off emotionally satisfying but also heroic and masculine roles in films. The character’s past war trauma proves a fascinating character study as well as a mainstream action thriller.