Rambo: Last Blood is the franchise's most mean-spirited entry and its least satisfying conclusion, a film that gives John Rambo a farewell of considerable violence and almost no emotional resonance. Adrian Grunberg's 2019 film is not without its pleasures. The final act, in which Rambo turns his ranch into a booby-trapped killing ground and dispatches a cartel of Mexican traffickers with a methodical brutality, is staged with a competence and physical clarity that makes it the film's most purely entertaining passage. But the dramatic work required to earn that finale is handled with such superficiality that the violence feels gratuitous rather than cathartic. Last Blood is a film that wanted to give Rambo a final reckoning. It lacked the intelligence to make that reckoning feel earned.
At a Glance
Director: Adrian Grunberg
Runtime: 89 minutes
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Yvette Monreal
Release: 2019
Critics Rating: ★½ (1.5/5 stars, mean-spirited and dramatically thin)
Audience Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, divisive)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Rambo, now living on his family's Arizona ranch and caring for his housekeeper's granddaughter Gabrielle, travels to Mexico when Gabrielle is kidnapped by a cartel and sold into sex trafficking. When he finds her, she dies from the drugs she has been given, and Rambo returns to his ranch to prepare for the cartel's inevitable retaliation. Gabrielle's death is the film's most significant event, but the picture does not do sufficient character work with her before that death to make her loss feel devastating rather than merely functional. The revenge premise is the franchise's most generically constructed, a narrative of adequate simplicity that provides sufficient structure for the home invasion finale that is the picture's real business.
Characters
Stallone plays Rambo's domesticity and eventual grief with a conviction that makes him feel credibly human in his quieter moments, and the character's relationship with Gabrielle is handled with enough warmth to make her loss feel personal even if the film does not develop her with sufficient depth to make it feel devastating. Paz Vega's Carmen is the picture's most dramatically interesting supporting character, a journalist of intelligence and moral conviction whose presence gives the film its most credible secondary thread. Sergio Peris-Mencheta's Martinez brothers are antagonists of adequate menace and no psychological depth, villains whose function is primarily to provide the home invasion finale with its justification.
Tone
Grunberg pitches the film at a register of grim determination and considerable violence. The first act, in which Rambo's domestic life and his relationship with Gabrielle are established, is its most tonally effective, a demonstration of the character's capacity for human connection that gives the subsequent violence a personal dimension it might otherwise have lacked. The final act's home invasion sequence is the picture's most purely entertaining passage, staged with physical clarity and a methodical brutality that communicates Rambo's complete tactical capability.
Meaning / Themes
At its core, the film is about the completion of Rambo's journey, a final reckoning with his own capacity for violence and his acceptance of the nature that the franchise has spent five films exploring. The film raises this concern with more ambition than it develops, and the superficiality of the revenge premise prevents the conclusion from feeling like the thematic resolution the franchise's history demands.
Direction
Grunberg's direction is competent and narratively inert, lacking the psychological seriousness of the original and the moral conviction of Rambo 2008. The home invasion sequence is the film's most purely effective passage, staged with physical clarity and a methodical brutality that makes it the franchise's most tactically distinctive action sequence and the picture's most significant achievement.
Cultural Reception
Rambo: Last Blood received a largely negative critical response on its release, with most reviewers identifying the film's superficiality and mean-spirited tone as its central limitations. Commercial performance was modest. It is now most frequently discussed as the franchise's least satisfying conclusion, notable primarily for the home invasion finale and Stallone's committed performance in the quieter moments.
Who Should Watch
Franchise completists will find it necessary viewing as the series' conclusion, approached with modest expectations. Those who come primarily for the home invasion finale will find that sequence delivers exactly what it promises, staged with physical clarity and a methodical brutality that makes it the franchise's most tactically distinctive action sequence.
Final Verdict: A mean-spirited and dramatically thin conclusion that gives Rambo a farewell of considerable violence and almost no emotional resonance. The home invasion finale is the franchise's most tactically distinctive action sequence, but the failure to develop Gabrielle with sufficient depth and the superficiality of the revenge premise make Last Blood the franchise's least satisfying conclusion. It wanted to give Rambo a final reckoning. It lacked the intelligence to make that reckoning feel earned.
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