Retro Review: Commando (1985)

 
I'm going to make this review straight and to the point: This is the most entertaining 80's action flick I've ever seen before. Somehow, someway I'd never seen it until I reached my current age of 31, and yet it was a wildly popular Arnold Schwarzenegger film at the time of its release in the mid-80s.

The plot is as simple as you're going to get for an action film. A group of South American criminals decide to get back at Arnie's main character, Matrix, a former Black Ops commando, for all the problems he caused them when he was still in the military, by kidnapping his beloved daughter, played by a very young Alyssa Milano. Matrix is not the type of man you want to piss off, so in turn, you proceed to see him kill as many bad guys as possible en route to hunting down the main villains of the film, played by Vernon Wells and Dan Hedeya. The action scenes are extremely well done, and very easy to follow on the screen, back in an era where action didn't have to be choreographed at an above rapid pace. Add to it, the flow and pace of the film just takes off and never really lets up. Even though there is a central female lead in the film, a flight attendant turned rogue pilot, played by the gorgeous Rae Dawn Chong, there's never that typical love scene that usually gets stuck in the middle of the film between Arnie's character and hers. It's purely business between the two.

Now make no mistake, this is a very unrealistic film, but since it almost feels like it's an over the top, tour de force of comic book style action, it allows your brain to let go and not nitpick the lack of realism. This film is from an era where people used to go to the movies to purely "escape" for 2 hours, and be sucked into a completely different world where the rules aren't the same as our reality. Another thing of importance, is that even though there is some brutal violence in this picture, it's almost as if the catchy "comic relief" one liners delivered so appropriately by Schwarzenegger, allow the violence to never be absorbed with too much shock value. It brings a necessary balance to the tone of the picture, and keeping a good sense of fun amidst the cart Blanche chaos we see on screen. Lastly, the James Horner, bohemian drum soundtrack just works for this type of film. It fits the setting, and the action to a tee, and never relents just as the action in the film never seems to let up either.

So take a trip down memory lane with this 80s extravaganza of over the top action, fun, and bloated testosterone. You won't regret it!