At some point in 1980’s Hollywood what had formally been considered B movie fare suddenly mutated. Expletive heavy, violent, testosterone laced action pictures, short on plot and dialogue, big on explosions and muscular leading men. One might argue this was the natural progression from Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films or the Westerns of John Wayne. Yet these latest films framed the new American hero – often in a lone capacity against some foreign threat – echoing Ronald Reagan’s Presidency.
Nonetheless, over 30 years later and many of them are still widely watched and favourably remembered.
Mark L Lester’s Commando was a direct descendant of the Rambo films but while they were somewhat more serious and sombre in tone, here was a movie that would be bombastic and cartoonish. There’s a curious opening where several members of a former army unit are separately wiped out before the title sequence which establishes – in saccharine style – the bond between John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who lives on a mountain ranch with his young daughter Jenny. Soon enough trouble is on the way and the odious Bennett (Vernon Wells) a disgraced former member of the unit led by Matrix turns up in pantomime style before kidnapping Jenny.
The reason for the kidnap? Bennett – who looks like he’s been clothes shopping in a dominatrix dungeon – is attempting to blackmail Arnie into working with him to assassinate the President of some made up South American country.
Just to establish, there is no sub-plot. These movies don’t do them so we’re “treated” to a straight forward revenge mission with Arnie breaking necks, jumping out of jets, abseiling through shopping malls and eventually donning body paint to take on Bennett’s mercenary army single handedly.
Not much can be said of the production or the music score which just never quits like they’re scared of it being too quiet when something isn’t exploding or crashing. It feels distinctly B-movie and there’s a lack of refinement but the action sequences are mostly well choreographed until Arnie’s notorious assault on Bennett’s stronghold where extras aplenty seem to collapse under gun fire on an endless reel of the same footage seemingly.
The supporting cast are unfamiliar for the most part although some do pop up in other Arnie films. A word about Vernon Wells who some might remember as the Mohican thug in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. In that movie he had little dialogue but here it’s mostly dire (which we can thank screen writer Steven E de Souza for) and his peculiar and camp screen presence is memorable for all the wrong reasons. If they gave out awards for eye bulging, he’d have done well.
At a running time of an hour and a half, it’s relatively short for an action film but one senses with the simple story and script, it is mercifully so. Somehow though, from the sight of Arnie carrying a log over his shoulder on his ranch through to his fight with Bennett, Commando became iconic and established Arnie as a star. He’d starred in the far superior The Terminator the year before yet here he went onto establish his brand of charisma. All the Arnie tools are on show although they need work; focus on his formidable muscles, one liners as he despatches his enemies and one dimensional grotesquely burly villains. He repeats what would become his line “I’ll be back” used in The Terminator and you can see a star in the making. All would be improved on in future films like Predator and Running Man, this merely being the blueprint for a formula that would become very successful for Arnie and much loved by an audience who knew what they were paying for. As for Vernon Wells, he presumably now models erotic dancewear in Venice Beach.
Athon 