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Shooting the new Rambo film on location near the Burmese border was never going to be a walk in the park, even for a man experienced in the action movie genre like Sylvester Stallone. The director and star tells FOCUS all about it.
A grand old actor, breathing his last on his deathbed, was once asked if dying was difficult. It was, he reported, but not as difficult as comedy. Perhaps Sylvester Stallone should count his blessings that the fourth instalment of the Rambo franchise wasn’t playing it for laughs, because he had his work cut out as it was.
At 61 years old he doesn’t need the physical challenge, but with the dangerous attentions of an unsympathetic Burmese regime upon him and the countless hardships that come with shooting in so rugged an environment he had plenty to ponder as he returned to the role of John Rambo for the fourth time.
"I didn’t want to go to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand," he explains, "because we were getting an abundant amount of death threats. Not just to me but to the crew, because the Burmese police are insidious and they work up and down the Salween River from Mae Sat in the north, and they made their presence known.
"As a producer I said 'can’t we shoot this some place like Acapulco?, I don’t feel like dying to make this film. But then I remember when we did Rambo II we shot it in Mexico when it was supposed to be Vietnam. We had about 13 extras, part-time waiters from Thailand, and I thought we couldn’t keep doing this. So we did it authentically.
"We went back there and we just dealt with it. The King was nice enough to give us his border patrol, but it was a pretty tense situation. It was a very difficult film, but I’m glad we did it there, I’m glad we finally got the Burmese to agree to be in the film, because they were terrified, terrified to be in the film. I couldn’t ask for a more harsh, but more interesting experience."
Harsh and interesting are an apt choice of words, for this Rambo adventure has faced some criticism for the head spinning body count. It’s grim, visceral stuff but Stallone insists that for all its genre trappings it’s a reflection of how cheap life is to a government prepared to get to extreme lengths to retain power.
"As horrific and bloody as you might think the film is, I don't think it is gratuitous violence," he says. "Gratuitous violence is a guy dressed up in a fright wig with a meat cleaver chasing teenagers around the woods for ten hours."
An actor dressed up as a Halloween monster would have been a welcome relief, one suspects. Having brought the movie in for just $14 million, Stallone gives the impression he is pleased to have survived the experience and lived to tell the tale.
"I did this stupid stunt where I get blown off the hill and there's this giant wave chasing me and I roll down the hill and all you're hoping is that there won’t be a branch sticking out of the ground I’m rolling down. So I'm almost at the bottom and I hit this log, I got up and thought 'perfect,' then 'BANG!' I went into a bamboo tree.
"I drew back and fell onto this cactus that punctures my arm and the next thing I know I'm in the hospital with this haematoma that was so big that from here down [he indicates his chest] to here [he points to the end of his arm]. I was, what you might say, a true blue blood.
"But everything is dangerous, you know? I mean how do these people live? You know, you have 11 people on a moped, no-one gets killed. I sit at home, wear a seatbelt , a helmet and 'CRASH!', you're dead. It's unbelievable."
The exasperation is real, the point well made, life is harsh in such extreme environments. Sometimes you just have to laugh.
ANWAR BRETT
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