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Rambo III

  • 1988
  • R
  • 1h 42m
IMDb RATING
5.8/10
145K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
4,168
101
Sylvester Stallone in Rambo III (1988)
Home Video Trailer from Artisan
Play trailer1:59
1 Video
99+ Photos
One-Person Army ActionActionAdventureThriller

Rambo mounts a one-man mission to rescue his friend Colonel Trautman from the clutches of the formidable invading Soviet forces in Afghanistan.Rambo mounts a one-man mission to rescue his friend Colonel Trautman from the clutches of the formidable invading Soviet forces in Afghanistan.Rambo mounts a one-man mission to rescue his friend Colonel Trautman from the clutches of the formidable invading Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

  • Director
    • Peter MacDonald
  • Writers
    • David Morrell
    • Sylvester Stallone
    • Sheldon Lettich
  • Stars
    • Sylvester Stallone
    • Richard Crenna
    • Marc de Jonge
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    5.8/10
    145K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    4,168
    101
    • Director
      • Peter MacDonald
    • Writers
      • David Morrell
      • Sylvester Stallone
      • Sheldon Lettich
    • Stars
      • Sylvester Stallone
      • Richard Crenna
      • Marc de Jonge
    • 269User reviews
    • 127Critic reviews
    • 36Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 2 wins & 7 nominations total

    Videos1

    Rambo III
    Trailer 1:59
    Rambo III

    Photos350

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    Top cast32

    Edit
    Sylvester Stallone
    Sylvester Stallone
    • Rambo
    Richard Crenna
    Richard Crenna
    • Trautman
    Marc de Jonge
    • Zaysen
    Kurtwood Smith
    Kurtwood Smith
    • Griggs
    Spyros Fokas
    Spyros Fokas
    • Masoud
    • (as Spiros Focas)
    Sasson Gabay
    Sasson Gabay
    • Mousa
    • (as Sasson Gabai)
    Doudi Shoua
    • Hamid
    Randy Raney
    • Kourov
    Marcus Gilbert
    Marcus Gilbert
    • Tomask
    Alon Aboutboul
    Alon Aboutboul
    • Nissem
    • (as Alon Abutbul)
    Masud Asadollahi
    Masud Asadollahi
    • Rahim
    • (as Mahmoud Assadollahi)
    Yosef Shiloach
    Yosef Shiloach
    • Khalid
    • (as Yosef Shiloah)
    Harold Diamond
    • Stick Fighter
    Mati Seri
    Mati Seri
    • Gun Dealer
    • (as Seri Mati)
    Hany Said El Deen
    • Gun Dealer
    Shaby Ben-Aroya
    • Uri
    Marciano Shoshi
    • Afghan Girl
    Sadiq Tawfiq
    • Helicopter Person
    • Director
      • Peter MacDonald
    • Writers
      • David Morrell
      • Sylvester Stallone
      • Sheldon Lettich
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews269

    5.8145.1K
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    Featured reviews

    7BA_Harrison

    Rambo helps the Mujahideen.

    Having single-handedly defeated the Vietcong in First Blood Part II, there was no going back for John Rambo: once a tortured soul, he was now a larger-than-life comic-book hero righting the world's wrongs through extreme violence and that was how he would have to stay in order to keep his fans happy. Rambo's next mission would have to be bigger, the villains more evil, and the body count higher. With the US in the midst of a cold war with Russia, the answer was obvious: send Rambo to kick Russian butt in Afghanistan.

    Armed with a knife that would shame Crocodile Dundee, several big guns, and his trusty bow with explosive-tipped arrows, Rambo frees his ex-commanding officer Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) from a Soviet fort and liberates the Mujahadin, laying waste to hundreds of the enemy in the process.

    But while the film's numerous battle scenes certainly deliver on the promise of much carnage, with some of the biggest on-screen explosions of the 80s, the film offers little in the way of genuine excitement or tension thanks to Rambo being virtually indestructible. The spectacular action also has the effect of making proceedings seem rather dull whenever Stallone eases off the trigger, resulting in this film being a marginally less enjoyable affair overall than the previous movies.

    Ironically, for all of Rambo III's glorification of violence in the name of a noble cause, the closing message, dedicating the film to 'the gallant people of Afghanistan', unintentionally but effectively illustrates the futility of war.
    6Theo Robertson

    Better Than The Second But Very Uneven

    Believe me RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART 2 took some swallowing but the opening ten minutes of RAMBO 3 caused me to fall out of my chair in shock . John Rambo does prize fighting to earn his keep in a Buddhist commune ! I mean that`s a bit like having a film where the hero`s an environmentalist who goes around blowing oil rigs to save the Alaskan wilderness . Oh wait a minute didn`t Steven Seagal ....

    Despite this incredible and vain attempt at character development there follows much dialogue that accurately reflects what is going on in Afghanistan in the mid 1980s . The Soviet - Afghan war actually intensified when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and by that time over one million Afghans had died in the conflict while as many as five million had been forced over the border into Iran and Pakistan as what analysts at the time called " Migratory genocide " , a euphemism that people nowadays would describe as " Ethnic cleansing " . There`s other parts of the film that points out that screenwriter Sheldon Lettich has done his homework on the conflict with factual things like Soviet conscripts defecting to the Mujahedeen , of the red army planting mines and booby traps disguised as toys to blow off the limbs of children and of the Soviets use of chemical weapons which almost certainly proves that the sloppy script of FIRST BLOOD PART 2 was mainly down to James Cameron than Stallone , but as you`d expect in this type of action adventure movie the script rapidly degenerates into a series of set pieces of an all American superman blowing up a bunch of nasty commies who can`t shoot straight . Ah well at least the main commie isn`t played by a British actor unlike in the last film . Oh and congratulations to Peter McDonald for at least trying to make a Puma helicopter look like a Soviet helicopter gunship . The previous director was under the impression that the Soviets and Viet Cong use American Hueys

    Setting the record straight : A lot of people prove how ignorant they are of the Soviet - Afghan war by confusing the Mujahedeen with the Taliban . The Mujahedeen ( Translated " The soldiers of God " ) and the Taliban ( Translated " The students of God " ) are entirely seperate things . The Taliban were created in Pakistan in the early 1990s , took over Afghanistan in 1995 and were led by Mullah Omar . The Mujahedeen were split into several different groups and were led by different leaders ( None of them called Bin Laden ) most of them forming a coalition against the Taliban called the Northern Alliance in 1995/96 . Their overall leader was the legendary guerilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud who was murdered in a suicide bombing by Al Qai`da terrorists in September 2001 . It was the Northern Alliance who fought side by side with the Western coalition during their campaign to overthrow the Taliban government in 2001 to the present day
    Krakhed666

    This movie is great

    Rambo III is one of my favorite movies of all time. After Rambo rescues the American POWs in Vietnam he moves to Thailand and works in a Buddhist monastary. He keeps in shape by stick fighting and doing construction work around the monastary. Sam Trautman and Eric's father from "That '70's Show." Ask Rambo for his help because Trautman is on a mission to deliver Stinger Missiles to the rebels fighting the Soviets. Trautman later gets caught by the Soviets, and Eric's father tells Rambo at the monastary about Trautman getting captured. To make a long story short Rambo gets his equipment ready, (detonators and of course BLUE LIGHTS)and heads off to Afghanistan. It takes awhile for the Afghan Tribes to accept Rambo (they think he's a lost tourist.) The fighting and gun fights are so far-fetched that you gotta love it. The climax of the film is awesome. Rambo and Truatman get conered by the Soviets, and Rambo says his famous one liner "F_ck Them!" and starts shoot'n gernades at the soviet army. With the help of the Afghan Tribesmen, Rambo jumps into a burning Soviet tank and squares off against a evil soviet commander in a attack helicopter. Rambo kills the soviet commander by shooting the tanks machine gun into the helicopter's cockpit and rams the tank into the helicopter blowing it into millions of pieces! and of course Rambo survives. I give this movie 7/10
    7mwwmb

    take it for what it is!

    Rambo III is a action film as simple as that. a hero that does nearly impossible things and thats the attraction of a action hero he's not a real person it's a movie. movies like this just want to entertain you for 90mins. to 2hrs. and no matter how impossible or unrealistic things are you take it for what it is. that's the idea of wild action films they take you to another place, as a film lover i try not to have such high hopes for things, i want to see it with just a open mind . some things you will like and some you don't. rambo III is one i like. people talk about plot and what this film does and does not do . this film gives you just what you think it will.
    Wizard-8

    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.)

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Sylvester Stallone asked for a Gulfstream jet (cost: $12 million) as part of his pay for the film. He got one.
    • Goofs
      In First Blood (1982), Rambo has tons of scars on his back. In this movie, in the scene right before Rambo goes into the warehouse for the stick fight, there is a shot of his back and you can see that the scars are gone.
    • Quotes

      Hamid: What's that?

      Rambo: It's blue light.

      Hamid: What does it do?

      Rambo: It turns blue.

    • Crazy credits
      The end credits open with a message that says, "This Film is dedicated to the Gallant People of Afghanistan".
    • Alternate versions
      Released shortly after the Hungerford massacre in the UK, the BBFC removed just over 1 minute of violence from the cinema version and a total of 3 minutes of both violence and weapon scenes from the 1989 video version. Among the cuts made to the film were heavy edits to the opening stick fight, butts and kicks during fight scenes, electrical torture scenes, and heavy reductions to closeups of knives and bullet wounds. The uncut version has turned up many times on pay TV (Sky and Bravo).
    • Connections
      Edited into The Marine (2006)
    • Soundtracks
      HE AIN'T HEAVY... HE'S MY BROTHER
      Written by Bob Russell & Bobby Scott

      Harrison Music Corp. (ASCAP)

      Jenny Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

      Performed by Bill Medley

      Produced by Giorgio Moroder

      Courtesy of Voss Records

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    FAQ24

    • How long is Rambo III?Powered by Alexa
    • What was Trautman doing in Afghanistan?
    • What is 'Rambo III' about?
    • Is 'Rambo III' based on a book?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • May 25, 1988 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Instagram
    • Languages
      • English
      • Russian
    • Also known as
      • Rambo 3
    • Filming locations
      • Chiang Mai, Thailand(Buddhist Monestary)
    • Production company
      • Carolco Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $63,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $53,715,611
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $13,034,238
      • May 29, 1988
    • Gross worldwide
      • $189,015,611
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 42 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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