Arnold Schwarzennegger plays colonel Matrix a retired special forces operative who lives an idealic life with Jenny, his daughter, in a remote mountain location. When hench men appear and kidap his daughter Matrix must enlist an unlikely ally Cindy, a jittery flight attendent to help him find his daughter.
Turns out a disgruntled member of Matrix former crew Bennett and a deposed dictator Arius want Matrix to kill the encumbant leader of Val Verde in exchange they wont kill his daughter..
In the 80s and 90s Stallone and Schwarzennegger ruled the action genre. Arnie came off two big hits Conan the barbarian and The terminator while Stallone had finished Rambo: First blood. Looking for his next big hit, and in no small way trying to compete with Stallone’s grasp on the action Genre, Arnie agreed to appear in Commando.
The original screenplay was vastly different than the movie we see today. It was originally to centre on an israeli commando who turned his back on violence in favour of the simple life.
Steven E De Sousa, who would later write the seminal action flix Die Hard, was hired to rewrite the screenplay to suit Arnie’s movie persona aesthetic. Zingy one liners and larger than life stunts were added to the mix, favouring Arnie’s strengths as a physical action star.
Mark L Lester would direct with an estimated budget of 12 million dollars. A tiny budget by todays standards, the movie does have a slightly budget friendly aesthetic. Continuity is a mess; Sullys car a highlight with the damage appearing and disappearing between shots. Lesters direction is work man like, favouring quick cuts rather than tension and creativity. It was never going to be oscar winning but rather a quick and dirty action flick which tries to be more Rambo than Rambo.
It is reported that Lester seen an early cut of Rambo: part 2 and increased the amount of dying stunt people on screen. The adage of more is better doesn’t apply here as we witness the same stunt men die again and again with dodgy moustages and wigs.
Not to mention the even dodgier manequinns that are badly positioned in front of slow motion explosions when we eventually get to Val verde.
But I digress Val Verde only accounts for about 20 minutes of the movie. The rest is purely setup trying to find out where they have taken his daughter. There is fun to be had with Arnie dropping a one liner as he holds Sully over a cliff face using his weak arm ‘remember when I told I’d kill you last? I lied’ . Reportedly director Lester wanted Arnold to hold the actor playing sully over the cliff for real without assistance. Thankfully that didn’t happen.
The screenplay called for a sex scene between Cindy and Matrix during the two hour flight to Val Verde which wouldn’t have played very well. But considering what would have come after it it wouldn’t have been totally out of left field. The movie is a hodge podge of scenes that don’t quite fit. Case in point the strange scene of Cooke robbing a car out of a dealership. Its seemingly there just to see a car drive through a window.
One of the more bizarre decisions is the costume that Vernon wells wears who plays Bennett. A cross between the village people and an extra from the rocky horror picture show. Bennett rocks an ill fitting chain mail wife beater, leather trousers and fingerless gloves. It is the very epitomy of camp. What it doesn’t scream is scary dude. The roumer is that Wells took over from Wings Houser and they didn’t have time to remake his costume. Given how poor the costume looks its unlikely a tailored version would have been any better.
However, Wells does give a commited performance. Its campy for sure and littered with unintentional homerotic tendancies but bizarrely fun to watch. No more so that the final fight between Bennet and Matrix an OTT mano a mano duke to the death which features some unintentionally funny sequences.
In the end Commando is a guilty pleasure. Loud, Choppily edited with some OTT sequences. It’s very much a product of the 80s, filled with action man bravado.
Somewhere. Somehow. Someone is going to pay..