Rambo III

Stallone, up against the Soviet Union, caught in a casuistical interchange between good guy Crenna and Red hammer of Afghanistan de Jonge about the unwisdom of superpowers attempting to crush freedom-loving peasant patriots. Huh? Not for Rambo such abstractions. He is only persuaded to break off his crash course in Buddhist meditation by the capture of his buddy, and his commitment to liberating Afghanistan comes after a manly variant of polo with the tribesmen and a dead goat. Then there's spunky orphan Hamid, though quite what depths of empathy their lingering looks are meant to imply remains a tantaliser. Rambo fights his way into the Russian fortress, fights his way out, and fights his way in again. He doesn't award pay-off lines, but he does explain that he's no tourist, and displays risible stoicism in removing a spike from his stomach and cauterising the hole with a charge of gunpowder. Saturday Morning Picture Club stuff, only dearer.