In December 1981, John Rambo, a United States Army Vietnam War veteran, learns he is the sole survivor of his unit after news reaches him that an old comrade died from complications tied to Agent Orange exposure. He arrives in the town of Hope, Washington on foot, where he is confronted by local sheriff Will Teasle, who mistakes him for a drifter and warns him not to return. Feeling slighted, Rambo tries to re-enter, but Teasle quickly arrests him and hands him over to the town’s cruel chief deputy, Art Galt, along with other deputies who abuse him. The mistreatment triggers painful flashbacks to the torture he endured in Vietnam, and Rambo fights his way into the surrounding mountains with only his field knife, seeking space away from the town’s hostility.
Teasle organizes a broad search party with deputies, air support, and dogs. Galt ignores orders and makes a reckless attempt to shoot Rambo from a low-flying helicopter, an act that ends in tragedy when a rock tossed by Rambo causes the helicopter pilot to lose control and crash. Teasle learns that Rambo is a former Special Forces soldier and a Medal of Honor recipient, yet he remains resolved to continue the pursuit. Not wanting to escalate the situation further, Rambo tries to surrender but comes under fire from the deputies and flees back into the tree line. He uses his bushcraft to create traps that subdue the pursuing officers, and at one point he holds Teasle at knifepoint, demanding that the chase stop before he slips deeper into the woods. As the state mobilizes Washington State Patrol officers and National Guard units to assist, Rambo’s former commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Trautman, joins the mix to help de-escalate. Trautman pleads over the radio to Teasle to relent, but the sheriff remains obstinate. Over the airwaves, Rambo refuses Trautman’s pleas to surrender, and he enunciates a stark assessment: > they drew first blood.
Rambo falls back to an abandoned mine, where National Guard forces fire an M72 LAW to collapse the mine after suppressive fire fails to force him out. Believed dead, Rambo escapes through a ventilation shaft and returns to town, hijacking a military transport truck to confront Teasle directly. Trautman again tries to persuade him to surrender, while Rambo creates a distraction by causing a gas-station explosion, cuts power to much of the town, and destroys a gun store. He then bursts into the sheriff’s office and fires an M60 machine gun at Teasle, grievously injuring him. Trautman arrives and appeals to Rambo, who finally relents and surrenders after recounting his negative experiences from the war and from his return home. Trautman comforts Rambo before escorting him into federal custody, while Teasle is taken away for treatment in an ambulance.
