Sly Suppression
“Rambo III” will open in Britain in late August--but already it’s the hot topic of editorials in the Daily Mail and the Daily Express . . . suggesting the bloody movie be banned!
Sources further report that the British Board of Film Classification--which awards films “certificates” (like our ratings)--was so concerned about the ultraviolence that it screened the Sly Stallone film several times. The board’s consensus: Some violence has to go.
About 50 seconds will be trimmed, “from maybe 10 or 12 scenes. A snip here, a snip there,” said a rep for Columbia-Tri-Star International, the film’s overseas distributor.
“Screen violence is a major issue here,” said Daily Mail reporter Baz Bamingboye, alluding to the August, 1987, massacre of 16 people by a gunman in Rambo-like attire. An official inquiry revealed that the gunman had not seen the “Rambo” films. “But those movies are so gratuitously violent. In the public mind, the ‘Rambo’ movies are indelibly linked to what happened.”
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
