Commando
                                                                                                                         
Director: Mark Lester
Year: 1985
Rating: 8.0
Every so often I need a fix of 1980s action. It was a world of its own. Action has gotten slicker, more stylish, more expensive but nothing beats the crude, in your face outlandish action of the 80s. The icons of that period - Stallone, Willis, van Damme, Norris, Schwarzenegger - are still icons today. For a good reason. The films they made were so much fun, so physical, so macho, so American. The triumph of the individual. They were indestructible. So anything was possible.



No more so than this film with Schwarzenegger as a force of nature. Jump from a flying plane? Sure why not. Pick up a phone booth and toss it across the room. Take out an entire rebel army without as much as a scratch. And sling puns all along the way. Bad puns are vital to these films. Those went viral back in the days before the internet. What is amazing about the film is that apparently the "original script was about an Israeli soldier who had renounced violence." Just a few changes along the way. Only Hollywood could take a film about pacifism and turn it into a blood bath.



Arnold plays Matrix an ex something in the military. A special group that were the best. But he has retired to be with his daughter (a very young Alyssa Milano) out in the boonies. But men under General Arius, an ex Presidente of a South American nation, kidnap the little girl. They will kill her unless Matrix flies to this imaginary nation and assassinates the leader. What's a guy to do?



Well, obviously kill the chaperone on the plane, go into the plane's cargo area, hang on to the wheel and jump. He has 11 hours to kill everyone. Including David Patrick Kelly (famous to this day for his chant "Warriors, come out to play"), Vernon Wells as a psycho, Dan Hedaya as General Arius, Bill Duke as a killer and on the plus side he picks up the spunky Rae Dawn Chong along the way. I vaguely recall having a crush on her after seeing this way way back. This is high energy testosterone and as a bonus Arnold goes the last 20 minutes without a shirt, his muscles pumped,  his body oiled up and shooting down an army of men who run right into his squibs by the dozens. An iconic scene. Arnold had his share of classics back then, but this one ranks near the top.