Movies, in my opinion, are at their best when they are aspirational. Some of my favorite films are movies about big ideas or big stories, and watching them play out on the big screen is a sight to behold, like an amazing love story or the D Day invasion. Commando is the opposite of aspirational: it is self aware. There are certainly big things in the movie, but that is a reference to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s muscle tone and the sheer number of deaths on screen.
Commando is a text book example of an 80s action movie. Chapter 1: cast a hulky badass as your lead, preferably with a last name of Stallone or Schwarzenegger. Chapter 2: Make the person a retired member of an elite military unit, and make him retire to spend time with his family so we’ll like him. Chapter 3: Send a member of said unit to the man’s house, informing him one member of the unit has betrayed everyone and some criminal syndicate is killing members of his team…AND HE’S NEXT! Chapter 4: Syndicate sends killers to our hero’s house, and kidnaps his family, but doesn’t kill hero and tries to make a deal with him. Chapter 5: EXPLOSION!!!!!! Chapter 6: Hero evades deal, and goes on the run to find his family. Chapter 7: Enter sexy characterless love interest, who has the one skill the hero doesn’t have. Chapter 8: EXPLOSIONS AND MASS PUBLIC ENDANGERMENT!!!!! Chapter 9: Hero uncovers secret location of bad guys, starting a montage of weapons and ammo gathering; love interest tags along for zero reason. Chapter 10: Hero enters enemy stronghold, and is met with heavy resistance. Chapter 11: EXPLOSIONS AND MASS MURDER!!!!!!!!!! Chapter 12: Plucky family members evade assassination from Benedict Arnold character until hero can settle the score. Chapter 13: Mono e mono with the good guy prevailing, resulting in a terrific pun filled death scene. Final Chapter: Implied family happiness and tantric sex with love interest.
Another thing movies have, is a target the movie is supposed to hit. Commando is certainly not high art, but it does perfectly bulls eye exactly what it’s supposed to do, which makes it damn entertaining. I forgot how charming peak Arnold Schwarzenegger is. He’s got that cocky grin, crazy accent, and just insanely ripped physique that combines to make a great movie persona. Smartly, dialogue is sparse, so when the Austrian talks, he demands you listen. Commando opens with no explanation and chiseled hitmen laying waste to people in clever ways, dropping you right into the story. I actually find the time table setup quite clever: Schwarzenegger is supposed to help defeat Dan Hedaya’s rival South American syndicate, which takes 11 hours to get to, and Schwarzenegger evades flight capture leaving him 11 hours to find his family. Great! Stakes set, and fun watching him concoct his escape. The movie also never forgets that an explosion should happen every 15 minutes, so as soon as it knows you’re getting bored, Rae Dawn Chong is wielding a rocket launcher, or Schwarzenegger is leaping from upper floors of a mall to reach the ground before an elevator does. The last 30 minutes just removes any character development for a shoot em up with explosions everywhere. Arnold, shirtless, just lays waste to the entire syndicate and blows up large chunks of the compounds, just to try to get his daughter back (awww). This all culminates in a Top 5 movie death pun scene, played unironically, that make me laugh for days for how corny and dumb it is. Commando, by sticking to the formula that worked, makes sure you’ll have a good time if you know what you’re getting into.
OK. Let’s see how many dumb, nonsensical story beats Commando uses in 8 minutes. And…..GO! The syndicate doesn’t kill Schwarzenegger but kidnaps his daughter, and is partially run by his nemesis Vernon Wells who witnessed firsthand how resourceful Schwarzenegger is. After Schwarzenegger escapes the plan masterfully, he recruits Chong to flirt with David Patrick Kelly for….what reason exactly? Why couldn’t he just kill the man? Chong was basically kidnapped by Schwarzenegger for this mission, and in the mall shootout, instantly develops Stockholm Syndrome and injures cops to help this crazy person she JUST CALLED THE COPS ON 2 MINUTES AGO. Chong then accompanies Schwarzenegger for no real reason to watch him murder several large hitmen or raid a military store, and even rocket launch a cop car even though the cops have no interest in her. Also, the cops do NOT come off well here; they blow the mall capture and are nowhere to be found. Ever. Only time they show up is when Schwarzenegger sets off an alarm, and they seem disinterested in the fact that he probably murdered several of their friends. And finally, it’s always funny watching this heavily armed, organized syndicate be taken down by one man, where the soldiers lose all ability to shoot weapons correctly while the hero has perfect precision to the point of pummeling multiple rounds into one person until they fall off something. Whew! So yeah, Commando did not win best original screenplay in 1985.
But it doesn’t matter if you have Arnold Schwarzenegger playing a guy named John Matrix. Commando gives you what you want out of an 80s action movie, warts and all and delivers perfectly on what it sets out to do. Now let’s awkwardly introduce our daughter to the woman your dad met 11 hours ago and is probably going to hook up with as soon as you get back home. Cue awesome 80’s rock song!