Retro Rewind : Commando (1985)

There are always gems hidden away on Netflix, and browsing through it the other day, I came across one of my favourite movies from way back in the days! Commando was the very definition of prime Schwarzenegger!! The one man army, the puns, the cheesy dialogue, Commando had it all! At only 90 minutes, it’s a fun way to pass some time!

 

The plot is so very simple. Retired special ops agent John Matrix (Arnold) is living the quite life out in the forests, with his daughter Jenny (A young Alyssa Milano!). The intro to the movie is a serene, joyful sequence, showing the loving father & daughter living the good life, spending quality family time together, having ice cream etc. Maybe this was done intentionally, as the rest of the film is anything but like this! It does raise a chuckle knowing what lies ahead! It’s not long until their cosy life is interrupted by a figure from Matrix’s’ past. It appears that all of his members from his old team are being murdered, and he is the last one left. Even with the warning, this doesn’t stop the villain, a ridiculously over the top, pantomime bad guy, Bennett from kidnapping Jenny, and blackmailing our hero to carry out an assassination mission for them. Matrix manages to escape the plane he is forced to board for his mission, and it’s a race against time to find his daughter before the plane arrives on the other side!

So as mentioned earlier, this film is as ‘Arnold’ as you can get! This came out around the time he hit his box office prime, with successes such as The Running Man, Predator, Total Recall and of course, The Terminator. Commando is known for 2 things among its cult fan base. The one man army troupe and the one liner. So many one-liners!!

The film is crammed full with memorable lines that fans still quote today! Where do you start? There’s the “Please don’t disturb my friend, he is dead tired’’ after nonchalantly snapping the neck of his guard on the plane. We can’t forget the infamous combo of “You’re a funny guy Sully, I like you, that’s why I’ll kill you last’’, followed later on with “Remember when I said I would kill you last? I lied” the deadpan delivery, with the fact he makes such remarks after killing someone is just comedic! And we cannot forget the final one-liner in the movie, after he inevitably wins at the end……..’’Let off some steam Bennett’, after casually impaling him with a pole in the boiler room! It’s all done tongue in cheek, so the lines never really ruin the movie, only adding to the spectacle!

Don’t be expecting any intricate story lines or stellar acting performances here! Cindy, our female accomplice for Matrix, is far too casual and mellow about being dragged into something as dangerous as this, and goes from ‘help, I’ve been kidnapped’ to ‘OK, I’ll help you take down a militia” rather too easily! Sully, the creepy & annoying henchmen is brilliantly irritating, and when you see his eventual demise, it’s great! As said, the acting is pretty much what you expect for an Arnold movie! In one scene, he crashes the car he is driving in pursuit of Sully into a tree. Literally right after the crash, he immediately checks on Cindy. There is literally no reaction from him to the crash at all! It’s so bad, it’s good! You would at least expect a brief moment of shock, but nope! Nothing here!

The final 3^rd of the movie is pretty much The Expendables, with one guy, though that guy is 1980s Schwarzenegger, so, more than enough firepower! In all reality, he wouldn’t even get past the first guards he encounters, but here, in Commando, he is taking an entire army, on his own, without a sweat! With any other actor, even back then, would seem improbable, but with Schwarzenegger, it feels perfect! This was his gimmick, a gimmick only he (and probably Stallone) could pull off flawlessly. There’s a video on Youtube that tallies up his kill count, and it’s defiantly worth a check! (102 kills, according to this!)

Nowadays, a film like this, would rarely succeed, though movies such as John Wick could compare well to this, one man, on a mission, kills EVERYONE! If you love a mindless action movie, with the star power of Arnold is his absolute peak then watch this! If you already have, watch it again! 😀 This is always one of those movies I could always go back to watching! I’ll be back, Bennett……………….