Director: Sylvester Stallone, 18, 2008

Stars: Stallone, Julie Benz, Paul Schulze

Rental/retail DVD, retail Blu-ray

Having spruced up Rocky Balboa, Stallone returns to his other signature creation, John Rambo, after a gap of 20 years. Our hero, living in the Thai jungle near Burma, is recruited to transport a team of missionaries under the nose of the vicious Burmese military. When things go wrong, Rambo intervenes as only he can.

There is, of course, blood, shooting and gore by the bucketful, but what makes the disc worth loading is Stallone’s defence of his film. He insists that the massacres depicted are actually less brutal than those conducted by the Burmese authorities, who were so concerned that the cast and crew received death threats.

Whether the film works as anti-Burma polemic, when its resolution is simply to throw an even more brutal force at them, is open to question. But at least the question is there to be asked.

DVD extras: picture-in-picture commentary (Blu-ray); documentaries

Also out:

Untraceable (18)

Diane Lane hunts a serial killer. (Retail DVD)

Penelope (U)

Whimsical modern fairytale with Christina Ricci and James McAvoy. (Retail DVD)

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