MovieChat Forums > First Blood (1982) Discussion > Am I the only one who thought Will Teasl...

Am I the only one who thought Will Teasle wasn't all that bad?


I know I sound like a crazy conservative, but just consider things from his point of view. It seemed like Rambo was a drifter and was carrying a concealed weapon, so Teasle did his job and arrested him. It's up to the court to decide if he's guilty, not the police. Teasle never abused Rambo at the station. That was entirely Galt. Teasle didn't even see it. Then he escapes police custody, which is obviously illegal, so Teasle does his job and tries to catch him. Galt was the one who tried to shoot Rambo on the mountain. Then Rambo throws a rock at the chopper in self defense and kills Galt, but Teasle didn't see his attempts to kill him. It looked like cold blooded murder. If your best friend was murdered, you'd want the perpetrator dead. But Teasle still never tried to kill Rambo in cold blood. The whole time he had a machine gun and knife and was wounding cops. It was self defense. And I remember at one point Teasle told the soldiers to take Rambo alive.

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Teasle had no idea Rambo had PTSD. And having PTSD doesn't give you the right to escape police custody and wound cops. The only thing he did to "provoke" him was try to catch him, which is what he was supposed to do. If there's a fugitive on the loose, you can't "let it go", you have to catch him.

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I agree. I don't think either characters are 100% good or bad. But everyone thinks Teasle is the devil, which I think is very unfair. Yes, I know he's a fictional character.

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I think that opinion is reserved for his underling....I forget his name, the one who taunted, beat Rambo, had him dowsed with a fire house at full power....etc. He is the one who escalated this and pushed Rambo over the edge.

The Sheriff was just kind of a jerk at times but at the outset he wasn't too over the top.

His major failure was putting an evil guy like the one who eventually fell out of the helicopter in charge of overseeing prisoners. How did he never realize before the guy was like that?

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Teasle was bad though. He judged Rambo by his appearance and refused to let him eat in town. Later on when he finds out he and his deputies find out he's a Green Beret and a Congressional Medal of Honor winnder, his deputy Mitch suggests they just let the state police handle it. To Which he grabs the guy, says Gault is dead, says he's going to get him and pin his Congressional Medal of Honor to his liver. You can tell by the way he says it that he is prejudiced against Rambo for being a Vietnam Veteran and also that he is jealous of the fact that Rambo won the Congresional Medal of Honor and he didn't.

Later on after the ordeal in the woods, he refuses to listen to a stinking word Trautman says and later admits to him he wanted to kill the kid. He later refuses to listen to Trautman's advice to not go after Rambo when he comes back into town at the end of the movie. And in the end would rather be shot to death by Rambo than to feel any guilt for his actions toward Rambo or feel any pity for him. Which imo makes him a disgrace as both a cop and a human being.

It also doesn't help that I have read the book where Teasle is a bit nicer to Rambo at first and even later lets him walk back into town to get a bite to eat. Also unlike the movie, in the book Teasle actually listens to Trautman about Rambo and feels bad for how he treated him. Not like the movie where he's just a hateful person who hates Rambo and refuses to see things from his point of view through Truatman.

Green Goblin is great! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1L4ZuaVvaw

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The great thing about this story is there aren't really any cut-and-dry good guys and bad guys, just victims of circumstance. The book has a lot more about Teasle and his motivation...being a Korean War vet who went through a lot of his ow war horrors and didn't like how a lot of young people felt about the war and America at the time. They hint at this in the movie when you see Teasle's medals in a case behind his desk.

Teasle is only trying to protect his town, though too heavy-handedly. He's too zealous and emotional about the chase, which Trautman points out to him. That's a character fault for sure.

Rambo isn't blameless...he knew what he was doing when he walked across that bridge, he was asking for a confrontation. But he shouldn't have been treated as he was, of course.

See...that's a good story. It's simple, but belies a lot of complexity.

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Anyone who considers Galt a close friend is not a good person.

Teasle was certainly not all bad. Dennehy cuts quite a believable, flesh-and-blood chatacter who believes he's protecting a quiet little town. He believes he can talk to Rambo the way he does in the car and run him out of town, having likely done it before. Trouble is, he's wrong. Beliefs are not truth. Easy to forget when you go around proclaiming yourself to be the law itself.

Life has a way of catching up with those who fail to question their own beliefs. One day, the wrong ox is gored. For Teasle, that ox was John Rambo.

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That was it for me too. Teasle either condoned Galt's sadism and cruelty or was clueless about it, either he was sadistic or stupid/oblivious.

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Anyone who considers Galt a close friend is not a good person.


Galt was an interesting character. Galt was actually fairly professional and surprisingly patient as Rambo continually disobeyed simple orders. It was only after Rambo freaked out and kicked the shit out of the entire Sheriff's Department in the basement did Galt go nuts. His anger was understandable (most cops would be livid after Rambo's attack), but where Galt went wrong was to continue his rage even in the helicopter where he tried to murder the defenseless Rambo.

I'm fairly certain that a situation like that never happened before in this sleepy little hamlet, so it's most likely that Galt never showed that side before (nor would he again....).

Dennehey's Teasle was another interesting character. As you say, he showed a human side. Even when he approached Troutman in the bar when he though Rambo was dead, he show mixed emotions about his behavior. Townsfolk liked him, and he was evidently very good at keeping things quiet in that town. But yes, Teasle was also a dick.

Perhaps on any other day, he might have let Rambo grab something to eat before escorting him out of town.

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Galt was an interesting character. Galt was actually fairly professional

ROFL. So getting angry and smashing supplies at your job with your baton is professional. If you think that remind me never to go to whatever place you work at.

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Well, you could have saved yourself the embarrassment of rolling on the floor laughing if you finished the sentence, or did you take it out of context on purpose?

Ah well, in any case, here's the entire quote:

Galt was an interesting character. Galt was actually fairly professional and surprisingly patient as Rambo continually disobeyed simple orders. It was only after Rambo freaked out and kicked the shit out of the entire Sheriff's Department in the basement did Galt go nuts.


I also said that Galt tried to murder the defenseless Rambo, so it's not like I was advocating for him as a swell guy.

Anyway, that's why Galt was interesting.




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Except he wasn't patient at all. He bashes that stuff with a baton when Rambo won't let them take his fingerprints. He forcefully takes Rambo's armytags from him. And then beats him with a baton when he's posing no threat. That's not patient at all. Frankly Book Galt is better. In the book his death is sad because he was a new guy on the job and makes a fatal mistake with Rambo that costs him his life. Rambo does pose a threat to him in that scene though. Rambo is armed with a razor and points it at Galt. Then Galt panics and pulls out his gun. Which then causes Rambo to slice his stomach open.

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He lost his patience after Rambo refused to give him his name, then refused to be fingerprinted. It was at that point when he told him he was starting to dislike him that things went downhill.

Rambo is armed with a razor and points it at Galt. Then Galt panics and pulls out his gun. Which then causes Rambo to slice his stomach open.


I usually enjoy reading the book of a movie I like, but I think I'm going to skip that one!

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He was bad for criticizing Rambo initially and telling him to leave. He had no right to do either as a police officer. He was a horrible guy. He was arrogant and placed himself above the law, and didn't care who he disrespected.

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The town got what it paid for in that idiot Sheriff! 

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A younger me would have seen him as a "dick cop", but there is a certain logic to Teasle simply wanting to keep the town in order and viewing Rambo a potential trouble. He was clearly older, not some rookie trying to make a name for himself and possibly trying to just run out his time before retiring. Along comes this troubled, brooding guy and he basically offers him a quick trip to the "nearest" place to eat (ten miles) - as long as i t was not in Hope.

It was telling with him exiting the diner and making an offhand remark about a resident taking a bath, then his casual reply about John's jacket and overall look. You get the idea that Teasle may be the type to cut you a small amount of slack, but Rambo just wasn't in the mood.

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Isn't this AMERICA? Shouldn't people be allowed to eat wherever they want to?

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