The Stallone Factor

By Chris Suellentrop

Sylvester Stallone has endorsed John McCain for president. Is the fourth “Rambo” movie a film-length argument for a hawkish, McCain-like foreign policy? At The House Next Door, Matt Zoller Seitz says “Rambo” has “a sharp pro-interventionist flavor”: “It’s a Stay the Course movie, an inspirational blood-and-guts action flick whose message seems aimed equally at the portion of the American left that wants to see democracy spread, but not in this way, and that supposedly has no stomach for war; and that growing sector of the American right that views Iraq as noble crusade led by incompetents.” He also writes:

Like its three predecessors, Rambo strikes a nerve, and it’s not a nerve that America’s left-leaning critical establishment wants struck. Co-written and directed by Stallone, the fourth Rambo movie is a bracingly political picture — as much an argument in movie form as No End In Sight; a pro-interventionist rebuttal to all the 2007 documentaries and dramas about America losing bits of its soul in Iraq. The I-word is never spoken in Rambo, yet in its coded way, the film makes a case for why we are in Iraq and should stay there until the job is done, whenever that may be.

(Thanks, Ross Douthat.)

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Mike Roddy January 28, 2008 · 5:58 pm

As a Democrat, I hope McCain starts showing up at public functions bookended by Sylvester Stallone and Joe Lieberman. Half of the jokes in Hollywood and Washington in the last 5 years have centered on these two.

You would think McCain would have learned from Huckabee’s poll numbers going south when Chuck Norris (another washed up action star) started hanging around him.

Americans don’t like to invade foreign countries without provocation. McCain should listen to the people, instead of those in the Hollywood ozone and the Beltway tough-guy think tanks.

Hillary January 28, 2008 · 6:43 pm

That makes me glad. Glad that a) Rambo’s target audience is neither of age to vote nor politically inclined, and b) no one cares who Sly Stallone is endorsing.

However, I think someone needs a hobby … you have to have better things to do with your time than analyze the deep political message in “Rambo.” Seriously.

rmkrist January 29, 2008 · 1:57 am

stay there until the job is done

But what is “the job”? To find WMD, spread democracy, or a dozen other supposed reasons? Again I ask: What is “the job”?

Should we really be lectured by or take the advice of a man who sat out the Vietnam period teaching gym at a girls’ school in Switzerland?

Rob Fiauto January 29, 2008 · 6:48 am

Foreign policy by way of Rambo! More “let’s pretend” of the sort that got us into this mess in the first place. No, thanks!

denis arvay January 29, 2008 · 7:26 am

Stallone is a perfect metaphor for McCain’s foreign policy as well as our nation’s “war against terror.” An over-muscled, performance-enhanced oldster who prefers violence to understanding the world. Destructive and ineffective, it’s a mentality in love with its own illusions about strength and destined for failure and defeat. The fictional Rambo is merely pathetic, but McCain offers real death and destruction.

Tim January 29, 2008 · 9:34 am

Who cares what Stallone thinks? Was he ever in the armed forces?
Anybody can have an opinion and he is entitled to his but I wouldn’t take it any more seriously than my next door neighbour’s.

stuart lehrman January 29, 2008 · 9:56 am

Did Chris Suellentrop actual see the movie?
I feel to Stallone credit and more then liken
unknow to him, is that he has made one of the most powerful anti-war moves yet.

It’s only to bad that Rambo was not around during Wound Knee, we could have seen General Sherman head shot off with a 50 cal.

JR January 29, 2008 · 1:53 pm

Rambo was fiction; unfortunately, John McCain’s foreign policy is real.

J.W. Wasson January 30, 2008 · 5:47 am

George W. “Bring ’em on” Bush and Rambo are one in the same.

Stan Schurman January 30, 2008 · 6:55 am

What is it with these movie/comic book heroes like Arnold, Stallone and Norris? They seem to think that somehow there on-screen personas translate into real life. That they really are action heroes…except, except they all have studiously avoided real life wars. John Wayne was once booed by the marines when he swaggered onto a stage wearing six guns during a show on a Pacific island. They made him understand that there was a difference between what they were enduring and what he had to endure at the buffet table during breaks at a movie shoot. Maybe someone should start booing these false ‘heroes’ as well. It’s one thing to endorse a candidate because you agree with his or her policies. It’s something else to be deluded into thinking that your ficticious life somehow has relevance to or enhances a candidate’s policies.

Kevin Humphrey January 30, 2008 · 8:15 pm

Apparently the people posting comments here have not read any of the interviews Sly has done concerning this movie. He went to Burma and witnessed the plight of those people. He chose Burma in an attempt to bring their troubles out so that the world will see them. From what I have read on hear it sounds as though all we need to do, to solve all the conflict in the world, is stand in a circle and hold hands. I sure hope it works.

Charlene Casoria February 21, 2008 · 10:24 pm

It’s amazing how people can just sit here, trashing people, sitting back in your easy chair, probably not moving a muscle other than your fingers to type this and make comments about an “over-muscled oldster”. This man you refer to used his talent and influence to go to the most barbaric place in this world to make a movie and to send a message. And we should all know this guy’s a millionaire several times over, so putting his life at risk and getting shot at threatened by the government in Burma while filming obviously was not something he chose to do because of money. He doesn’t need our money. He took the risk because he was driven to do so. But as always, when people actually have the ability and power to make a difference in this world they are always up for ridicule.