10 Great Movies About Men In The Wilderness

Though Stallone's Rambo is associated with rampaging through Afghanistan, taking down helicopters with millions of bullets, his movie debut was a lot more restrained. Having said that, the machismo and explosions were more than intact. For this chapter the wilderness was the setting for a tense, carnage-laden stand off.

Here the future “force for freedom” was a drifter falling foul of law enforcer Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy). Rambo just wanted a quiet life. But when Teasle deemed him an undesirable element the psychologically-scarred Vietnam vet fought back, fleeing to the woods to become a bracken-covered killing machine.

Before screenwriter James Cameron came in to ramp up the action for Part II there was the original and the best, adapted from David Morell's novel. Hiding amongst the trees was the ideal metaphor for Rambo's tortured state. Despite surviving the brutal conflict overseas, this was a man carrying the horrors of war in his skull, forever condemned to wander the wild, rather than settle down and raise a family.