While the recent return to the big screen by Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Last Stand wasn’t quite the movie we hoped for, the news that he should be returning for further installments of The Terminator and Conan series does keep the Forces of Geek gang quite excited.
So, we thought it was a prime time to take a look back at one of Arnold’s under-appreciated movies, one that certainly helped cement his position as one of the premier action heroes of the 80’s & 90’s when he headlined Commando.
The film was released in the mid 80’s and while the American poster screamed “Lets Party,” over in the UK we were given the far more generic tag line “Somewhere, Somehow, Someone’s Gotta Pay!” (“Let’s Party”, didn’t have quite the same meaning in the UK at least back then.)
Directed by Mark L. Lester, the film starred Arnold along with Alyssa Milano, Rae Dawn Chong and Vernon Wells. The movie delivered a roller coaster ride of gratuitous violence and one liners upon its initial release, but is all too often neglected when people look back at Arnold’s cinematic hits.
Arnold plays retired Special Forces Colonel John Matrix, who has turned his back on his military past and now lives the quiet life with his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano).
But when former members of his team start getting brutally murdered, the past soon catches up with Matrix. His home is attacked, his daughter taken hostage and he learns that Bennet (Vernon Wells), a man he thought dead is behind the attack. His objective to force Matrix to carry out a political assassination for a deposed warlord, Arias (Dan Hedaya) so he can return to power with a military coup to restore order.
With his daughter’s life at stake Matrix agrees to take the mission, and is put upon a plane to Val Verde. Matrix manages to escape from the plane during take off, and with the reluctant help of Cindy(Rae Dawn Chong), begins to track down Arias’ men after one of them Sully (David Patrick Kelly) tries hitting on her. After a brawl at a shopping mall, and subsequent car-chase, Sully is apprehended and killed after giving the whereabouts of another of the kidnappers Cooke (Bill Duke), who gives up Jenny’s whereabouts eventually.
Matrix and Cindy raid a weapons store, and hijack a seaplane before flying to the island where Arias and his men are hiding out, and holding Jenny hostage. Matrix tools up for battle big time, and wages a one man war against Arias and his men, before facing off against Bennet one last time. In the end there can be only one winner.
I hadn’t actually seen Commando in a good many years before reviewing the recent DVD release, and was initially worried it might not hold up, I was wrong. The film is still great entertainment, there’s some great action sequences, some great one liners, a solid performance by Arnold and he’s ably supported by a very solid cast working with him.
The only element that doesn’t work 100% is Vernon Well’s portrayal of Bennett, the seemingly Freddie Mercury influenced mercenary assassin, while he delivered great menace as Wez in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (so well that he turns up as pretty much the same character in everything but name in Weird Science!), even when I first saw the film as a teenager I didn’t think he was right for this film. His character seems too comic book inspired in a bad way, with the 80’s S&M trappings he wears and the wild eyed psychosis, and seemingly home-erotic inclinations just not really working. It didn’t work for me in the 80’s and doesn’t hold up now.
Yes, Vernon is memorable but to me it’s for all the wrong reasons! The film needed a really strong villain to face off against Arnold in the finale, not the camp crusader, you never get any real sense of menace from him, just annoyance.
Wells was brought in as a last minute replacement for another actor who began the production as a very different take on the character, but the name of the actor seems lost to the ravages of time… answers on a postcard if you know who it was?)
I do like Vernon Wells, just not in this movie; he’s great in Mad Max 2, Innerspace, Power Rangers where he also referenced Wez more than once, hell he was even good in Ringo Lam’s disjointed Undeclared War, just not a fan of him for this one…sorry Vernon!
Throws Jenny aside
Pulls out his knife
The rest of the cast give good performances, playing Matrix’s daughter, Jenny,is the cute as a button Alyssa Milano long before the revealing turns of Embrace of the Vampire and Poison Ivy, and the tattoos of Charmed.
Rae Dawn Chong (Daughter of Tommy from Cheech & Chong) is in fine form as Cindy who reluctantly tags along on the mission, changing from a reluctant accomplice (even if she’s not quite sure which way to point a rocket launcher to an under-played love interest and gets one of the greatest lines of all time during the fight between Arnold and Bill Duke’s characters, as they exchange one liners, she responds from the sidelines with her thoughts on their manly exchange.”
Dan Hedaya is suitably slimey as the deposed warlord Arias, and a slick looking David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors, The Crow) gets to die memorably possibly for wearing a very 80’s styled suit in the film.
Matrix releases Sully, who falls to his demise
The supporting cast also features a number of familiar faces including, the great Bill Duke as Cooke, Chelsea Field from Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man, the young Bill Paxton and the ever so cool Branscombe Richard.
Director Mark L. Lester keeps the film roaring along, with the action and exposition being delivered at a good pace, while the films action sequences coordinated by Bennie E Dobbins hold up to this day, with the opening attack on Matrix’s house, the escape from the plane, the shopping mall brawl, the fight between Cooke and Matrix in the hotel room, and the finale holding up very well. (if you can ignore the cardboard cut out soldiers who keep turning up in a few repeated shots!)
It’s also great to look back and see a movie where the action is all being done for real, with practical effects; people really jumping off of planes, etc. It’s adrenaline pumping stuff, not the over reliance on CGI that often detracts from a lot of new action movies today. The script by Steven E. De Souza (based on a story by himself, Jeph Loeb and Matthew Weisman) is fun, and the cinematography by Matthew Leonetti keeps the film looking very good.
For the DVD release and I believe the Blu-Ray, we are not only given both the original theatrical cut of the film as well as Lester’s directors cut, fully remastered and looking and sounding great. There’s a very informative and entertaining directors commentary from Lester who obviously remembers the film and his experiences on it with great affection, (he also reveals how certain sequences were filmed, and when doubles were called in for certain moments), deleted scenes, a featurette on the action and more than 160 pages of photographs both from the film and behind the scenes, including some very candid shots of Arnold and company at work and play.
Hopefully we’ll see more neglected gems from the 80’s and
90’s action genre getting this kind of release, couple of quick
suggestions for films I’d love to see getting this kind of treatment?
Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Bloodsport, Cyborg, Kickboxer and Double Impact, the American Ninja series, and Invasion USA for starters. How about it DVD companies, deliver the films we want to see with the extras we’d all love to enjoy!
In the meantime, our friends at Shout! Factory are making a start at that idea, with the upcoming releases of two classic Dolph Lundgren films, Joshua Tree and Dark Angel/I Come In Peace, as special feature friendly releases, so how come more companies can’t do the same?
Perhaps one of the greatest homages to the film is Johnathan Kaplan’s superb Commando the Musical
Commando Factoids:
- Commando marked the first time Arnold Schwarzenegger was given true “top billing” on the poster, with his name being placed at the top of the poster above the film’s title, something which has been used for the majority of his subsequent movies.
- The shopping mall featured in the film where Arnold swings across the atrium is the Sherman Oaks Galleria, also featured in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
- The mansion used for the finale is the same mansion as featured in Beverly Hills Cop, and was the home of Silent Film star and stunt actor Harold Lloyd.
- The house used in the opening scene where the first of Matrix’s men are killed, was the home of screenwriter Steven E De Souza.
- Playing a radar operator in the film is the great Bill Paxton, who also co-starred with Arnold in The Terminator and True Lies.
- Bill Duke who pays the murderous Cooke, would later play an ill-fated member of Arnold’s commando team in Predator.
- The ever beautiful Ava Cadell who plays the busty girl in the motel room fight, is best known for her cinematic work in this film and some of Andy Sidaris “Girls with Guns” movies, is now a world renowned sex therapist!
- Matrix kills 89 people on camera in Commando and quite likely dozens more off-camera with the sheer number of explosions he sets off in the island climax. With a movie running time of 90 minutes, that is approximately 1 kill per minute.
- The commercial for the fictional movie, “Exploder: Evacuator Part II” in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories parodies the movie, including the plot device of the hero’s family being kidnapped as well as “all hell breaking loose.”
- In an episode of The Simpsons, the character Rainier Wolfcastle an obvious parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger references Commando, while contemplating eating a sausage, taunting it with the line: “Remember when I said I would eat you last? I lied.”
- The character of Arias (Dan Hedaya) is a deposed dictator from the country of Val Verde, this fictional country was used frequently in Hollywood movies of the 80’s and 90’s to depict Spanish speaking countries similar to Cuba or Panama, but without encountering any diplomatic problems. The same country is referenced in both Predator and Die Hard 2. And if you log onto Vern the Outlaw Film Critic’s site you can actually buy a shirt bearing the country’s flag.
- David Patrick Kelly who plays “Sully”, can be seen in Dreamscape, where he plays a Bruce Lee obsessed “dream assassin”. Kelly gets to demonstrate his nunchuck skills during the finale. Kelly would also go on to play the ill-fated leader of the gang that kills Brandon Lee’s character in The Crow.
- Contrary to popular “urban myth”, the films director Mark L. Lester is not the same Mark Lester who played the title role in the musical “Oliver” in the 1960’s. That Mark Lester is a former British actor turned Osteopath. Mark L. Lester’s credits as a director include Commando, Firestarter, Showdown In Little Tokyo, Class of 1984, Roller Boogie with Linda Blair and the dark classic Night of the Running Man with Andrew McCarthy and Scott Glenn.
- A few years ago there was an unofficial Russian remake of the movie, which certainly captures the spirit of the original….
- Trailer comparisons:
- While Mark L Lester does give a great audio commentary on the movie, we do find ourselves wishing that perhaps Arnold would record the commentary he & Jimmy Fallon recently made fun of…
- The film made quite a splash at the box office and a sequel was planned, in 1986 one script was written by Steven E. de Souza, and revised by Frank Darabont, with an eye to having John McTiernan direct. The script was based on the book Nothing Lasts Forever (1979) by Roderick Thorp, but Schwarzenegger wasn’t interested in reprising the role. The script was then reworked with a new central character, eventually played by Bruce Willis, and became Die Hard.
