Rambo III (1988)

Rambo's Vietnam commanding officer Colonel Trautman is held hostage in Afghanistan, and its up to Rambo to rescue him.

Director:

Peter MacDonald

Writers:

David Morrell (characters), Sylvester Stallone,

Stars:

Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Marc de Jonge

2 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sylvester Stallone	...	Rambo
Richard Crenna	...	Col. Samuel Trautman
Marc de Jonge	...	Colonel Zaysen
Kurtwood Smith	...	Griggs
Spiros Focás	...	Masoud (as Spiros Focas)
Sasson Gabai	...	Mousa
Doudi Shoua	...	Hamid
Randy Raney	...	Kourov
Marcus Gilbert	...	Tomask
Alon Aboutboul	...	Nissem (as Alon Abutbul)
Mahmoud Assadollahi	...	Rahim
Joseph Shiloach	...	Khalid (as Yosef Shiloah)
Harold Diamond	...	Stick Fighter
Matti Seri	...	Gun Dealer (as Seri Mati)
Hany Said El Deen	...	Gun Dealer

Storyline

John Rambo's former Vietnam superior, Colonel Samuel Trautman, has been assigned to lead a mission to help the Mujahedeen rebels who are fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the Buddhist Rambo turns down Trautman's request that Rambo help out. When the mission goes belly up and Trautman is kidnapped and tortured by Russian Colonel Zaysen, Rambo launches a rescue effort and allies himself with the Mujahedeen rebels and gets their help in trying to rescue Trautman from Zaysen.

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Plot Keywords:

rambo | colonel | rescue | soviet | afghanistan | 

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Taglines:

God would have mercy John Rambo won't!

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Russian

Release Date:

25 May 1988 (USA)

Also Known As:

Rambo - krigaren 3

Filming Locations:

Bangkok, Thailand

Box Office

Budget:

$63,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$53,715,611 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Carolco Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min 87 min (1988) (heavily cut) (VHS)

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In this movie, Rambo can be seen wearing the necklace that Co (Julia Nickson) was wearing and which he put on after she died in Rambo: First Blood Part II.

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Goofs

In the sewer, Rambo activates a blue light. The area remains lit blue, even after Rambo removes the blue light, revealing an external lighting source.

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Quotes

Colonel Trautman: You expect sympathy? You started this damn war, now you'll have to deal with it.
Zaysen: And we will. It is just a matter of time before we achieve a complete victory.
Colonel Trautman: Yeah, well, there won't be a victory. Every day, your war machines lose ground to a bunch of poorly-armed, poorly-equipped freedom fighters. The fact is that you underestimated your competition. If you'd studied your history, you'd know that these people have never given up to anyone. They'd rather die than be slaves to an invading army....

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Connections

Referenced in Rambonomics (2002)

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Soundtracks

"IT IS OUR DESTINY"
Produced by Peter Wolf
Written by Peter and Ina Wolf
Performed by Bill Medley

User Reviews

Not terrible, but...

With the highest budget of the three movies, the movie certainly looks expensive, with an epic scope at times. But you never quite get the feeling that the movie settles into a comfortable groove. Though the action sequences have plenty of gunshots and explosions, the way they are filmed - and edited - doesn't have the right impact or flow, like the action sequences in the second installment.

In another comparison to the second installment, the story - while as sparse as this one - certainly kept moving. Here there are a number of segments that move very slowly and/or don't seem to have much purpose. The movie should have gotten down to business. The uneven flow of the movie also suffers near the end, as if the movie all of a sudden decides it needs to wrap things up in a few minutes, making the final battle almost come out of nowhere.

(In fairness to the director, it should be pointed out that he was a sudden replacement after original director Russell Mulcahy was fired, and had only ONE DAY to prepare to helm the rest of the movie.)

Like the previous installment, there is some dumb dialogue, but this time around it's not delivered in a slight tongue-in-cheek manner. If they had been willing to show this time around that they weren't taking things so seriously, it would have helped. You might say that the actor playing the Russian commander is not playing things seriously, but he goes SO over the top that he's embarrassing.

It's watchable, but disappointing - they had the chance to make a kick-ass action movie here.

By the way, the Afghans that Rambo helps in this movie are *NOT* the Taliban. People seem to forget that Afghanistan is made up of a number of different tribes. You can tell these particular Afghans are not the Taliban, because (among other things), the women are not completely covered, and the men play the traditional Afghan game with horses and a goat's skin (forbidden by the Taliban.)