Rambo: Last Blood * (2019, Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Yvette Monreal) – Movie Review

Old John Rambo is living happily with his housekeeper and niece Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal), who suddenly announces she wants to go to Mexico to meet and re-connect with her estranged father. Rambo talks her out of it, but next morning she is gone, soon meets to creep of a dad, who wants nothing to do with her, so she goes partying in a bar where her drink is drugged and she ends up incarcerated as a sex slave. News gets back to Rambo, who sets off to Mexico on a rescue mission that becomes a vengeance mission. The ensuing body count is high. Neither Nevada nor Mexico seems to have a police force between them.

This last chapter is a sad postscript to the supposedly legendary series, though, to be fair, there is a bit of B-movie style tension in the middle section and an action bloodbath at the climax, which may provide an element of satisfaction for Death Wish-style movie-goers. The film is basically low-class fodder, though it does stay true to the Eighties B-movie action thriller genre. Stallone looks ancient, though he also looks fit and looks as though he could actually be handy with these ruthless combat skills. He looks right in a Stetson and on a horse, so it’s not too late for him to try a Western.

Óscar Jaenada and Sergio Peris-Mencheta are nice and chilling as Victor and Hugo Martinez, the brother villains running the sex slave game, while Yvette Monreal is fine as Gabrielle. Paz Vega is so wasted as an investigative journalist who helps Rambo out that it feels like her role has been cut down. Indeed the film feels like it has been cut down from a longer, more complex, maybe more interesting movie.

Grunberg directs in the most basic manner. The film couldn’t be plainer or more ordinary. Brian Tyler’s pounding, unsubtle score helps patch the gaps. Also in the plus side, the film provides employment for thousands of people all named in the end credits, including the ‘cleaning lady on set’ [note, not ‘cleaning person’]. That must be a first.