Commando (1985) Review

By Jake Dee

Director: Mark L. Lester
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rae Dawn Chong
Released: 1985

After achieving a glimpse of notoriety in the late seventies with the documentary Pumping Iron, Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly became a mainstay on the big screen as a macho, brutish tough guy. With his physical prowess exploited in early works like Red Sonja and Conan the Barbarian, it wasn’t long before he was pegged as playing a certain stereotypical role. Perhaps his most seminal part, The Terminator, took this stereotype to a whole new level of obduracy. He played a heartless, homicidal cyborg sent from the future, laying waste to most everything in his wake. As years went on, maturity settling in perhaps, Arnie’s film image began to soften. Junior, anyone? One of the reasons why I love this next movie I’m about to review; it plants the early seeds of sensitivity that would eventually butter up Arnie’s on screen, machine like exterior. In Commando, He’s at once a murderous madman, as well as over-protective loving father. Let’s get this thing started!

You want lame? Nothing tops the opening sequence in this picture. Wow! Here, in an open countryside, Arnie’s flaunting a swollen, scantily attired body-o-beef (roids?) that is instantly put on display thru a slew of “manly” activities. Yep, we see those muscles going to work; chopping wood, carrying a tree trunk over his shoulder with one arm etc. I guess Mark Lester, like many action directors, was targeting that much coveted female demographic right, how’d that work for you ladies? Isolated in the mountains, Arnie’s brawny image is quickly countered by the presence of his young daughter Jenny, played by a pre-Who’s the Boss? Alyssa Milano. Together, in seriously some of the sappiest scenes ever witnessed, they feed a deer from the palm of their hands, share an ice cream cone, and happily snare some trout from a stream. Gosh, touching stuff!

Schwarzenegger plays John Matrix, an ex-Marine living in exile from his former foes. One day, Matrix’s mentor arrives via chopper to inform John that people are killing his men. When he asks who’s responsible, his mentor replies “Could be the Syrians, the South Americans, the Russians, or a terrorist group…you’ve made enemies everywhere John.” Hmmm, interesting! Then, literally minutes after his mentor leaves, Jenny is kidnapped. Oh no! This more or less springs the murky, one trick plot of this high octane action romp. Matrix must go on a kill crazy rampage in order to save his daughter. Got it? Let’s go!

We soon find out that one of Matrix’s supposedly “dead” men isn’t dead at all, but rather responsible for the kidnapping of Jenny. His name is Bennett, played hilariously by Vernon Wells. This fool’s decked in garb right out of Thunderdome (actually, he might have just reprised his costume from Weird Science, which came out the same year). Dude’s sporting a chain link cut-off vest, seriously, chain link, replete with a gang of rusted dog tags spewing from his throat like feral chest hair. He dons creepy cut off gloves like those of weight lifters; that well kept Magnum P.I. ’stache firmly hugging his upper lip. He sports the Forrest Gump flat-top; tight black leather pants that remind me of those biker bar scenes in the Police Academy pictures. For real, I’m still waiting for Proctor and Harris to roll out fully chapped. It’s quite a sight!

Bennett is also an ex-Marine. Really? Ex must be the operative prefix, because this guy’s in as good of shape as a bowl of Jell-O. Seriously, throughout the course of the movie, this guy is trying to hold his own in fight scenes against Arnie with a gnarly lard roll pouring from his belt. Not only that, but Wells is so over the top that he makes his native British tongue sound like a horribly fake accent. If it wasn’t funny, it’d be hard to watch!

For reasons never given to the audience (incoherent if they are), Bennett answers to a superior named Arius, a wealthy Colonel played with little gusto by Dan Hedaya. Jenny is taken to his compound, where she is held captive for the duration of the picture, until the final climax where Matrix has a showdown with Bennett. Hedaya’s ability to range that raspy accent from Latin to Russian is quite a feat. It’s indeterminable! Not only that, but his performance is so wooden here that it makes his stint as Nick Tortelli on Cheers seem like a Shakespeare workshop exercise. Or his Clueless role memorable! Ah, I kid…I actually enjoy his presence in this flick.

Along the way, Matrix manages to do some kidnapping of his own; his skull far too thick to absorb the irony I suppose. He abducts a woman named Cindy, played frantically by Rae Dawn Chong. After a bit of reluctance, she agrees to help Matrix find his daughter. They get around; follow the bad guys, fly a plane to Hedaya’s compound, loot an ammunition store (an awesome rocket launcher sequence!) etc., all leading to a crescendo of over the top violence and mayhem. Note the scene where Matrix infiltrates Arius’ compound; the sheer volume of arsenal on John’s person is hysterical!

Anyway, the picture speeds at a break neck pace, and no matter how weak the jokes get, how low the production values appear, how asinine certain situations seem, the tempo is always fast enough to keep a viewer interested. I may kid, but there are actually some solid action scenes here that make it genuinely fun to watch. Of course Matrix rescues his daughter in the end, defeating Bennett in some savage hand to hand combat (knife to knife really). Damn, forget sheep, if only we had a cloned army of John Matrixes (uh…Matrices?). In the final scene, we’re led to believe that Matrix will continue on with Cindy in a romantic sense, they all fly away blissfully to a really awful ’80s tune. All in good fun here folks!

Favorite Part: When the same bad guy in phony mustache dies like 12 different times in the final shootout scene.

The Overall Dee-Cision: Watch It!

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