Commando (1985) USA
Good Guys and Bad Guys, Earnest and Unironic Mindless Entertainment, The 1980s in Retrospect, Arnie As the Embodiment of the American Dream, "Let off some steam"
There comes a time in very man’s life when they ask themselves the question: “What if I just killed everyone who is standing in my way?” None of us actually go through with it, with the act of killing being against the law serving as the best reason why you shouldn’t do it. It is nice to daydream, though.
A few years ago, I was reading “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood”, and it got me to thinking about how motion pictures served to make our dreams come true in a way, as the stories and fantasies of people dead or alive could be filmed and shown on a big screen for all to see. Almost all of the early productions beamed onto screens in cinemas were escapist fare, which brings me back to daydreams. What we call “daydreaming” is precisely the act of escaping from our present reality. In October of 1985, 20th Century Fox released the Joel Silver-produced and Mark L. Lester-directed COMMANDO, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong, answering the related question of just how a daydream about killing everyone blocking your path might possibly look like.
Almost forty years have passed, but I can still vividly recall that one Saturday afternoon when I got to see COMMANDO in the movie theatre at Fiesta Mall. I also remember that it was warm that day, meaning that it was Indian Summer, and that Saturday found me with my father at Lucky Strike, a bowling arena where he went to go bowl a few frames with his friends. Being a pre-teen, my options there were very limited: I could watch him bowl and hang out with his buddies, I could also ask him for some money to play five-pin (as I was too young for ten-pin), or I could bother him to give me a bunch of quarters so that I can play some video games in the arcade inside of the building. The first option was boring, the second option required finding others willing to bowl with me, and third option was always a longshot as video game arcades in those days were associated with teen boys who smoked cigarettes and were therefore “bad”, or “bums” as my father, a notorious chain-smoker, would call them.
Luckily for me, a couple of my father’s buddies also brought their sons, and they were a few years older than me. My father asked how they planned on killing the next few hours, and they told him that they were going to the movie theatres across the street. My father asked them if it would be okay if they took me along, understanding that I was nowhere near their age, and they agreed to do so. “No problem”, Andy said. “He’ll be fine with us.”
Nostalgia is notoriously bittersweet. It seems that we humans have universally evolved to look at our past in a rosier light, thus impeding our ability to objectively judge it. We have a tendency to remember that which we view as positive, while suppressing the negative. No doubt that we are hardwired this way so as to not drive ourselves crazy as we age (not everyone succeeds, of course).
Another difficult element of judging a past that we have lived through is that a person cannot be a 15/35/55 year old in separate decades. You cannot be the same individual in different times, as your knowledge, experience, opinions, desires, etc. change over time. When you put these two elements together, you end up realizing just how difficult it can be to compare one era that you have experienced living through with another. I won’t let this complexity stop me, of course. Nor should it ever stop you either.
As described above, COMMANDO is escapist fare. The story is incredibly simplistic and very shallow: An ex-US Special Forces tough guy (Colonel John Matrix) lives in a remote hilly area somewhere in California where he, as a single parent, takes care of his very young daughter to whom he is utterly devoted. One day, his former commanding officer (US Army General Kirby) arrives in a helicopter to warn him that a rogue group of mercenaries has been killing his former subordinates and are most likely out to get him too. Immediately after General Kirby departs, his home is violently attacked and his daughter Jenny is kidnapped. Reacting to this, he tries to rescue her, only to be sedated via a tranquilizer gun. He awakens to see a dictator (Arius) that he helped overthrow in his presence, alongside three other men. One of these three men is Bennett, a one-time member of Matrix’s operational group who was kicked off of the team. Bennett, still holding a grudge over his expulsion, informs Matrix that he must go to the fictionalized country of Val Verde to assassinate its current leader, paving the way for ex-Dictator Arius’ triumphant return to power. As the present leader trusts Matrix, only he can get close enough to kill him. Matrix is then told that if he doesn’t go through with the act, they will kill his daughter. It is at this point that the main conflict of the movie has been explained to the viewing audience, and in the most direct and economical way possible. The rest of the tasks itself with how Matrix will try and rescue his daughter from their evil clutches.
I describe the plot as simplistic because it really is. There is no bigger message in the story, no shade, no nuance, no gray areas to be on the lookout for. What you see is what you get. A movie like this would not get greenlit today unless it was coated in several layers of irony. There are only six characters of real importance in the movie, each one a familiar and instantly recognizable archetype:
ex-Dictator Arius (Dan Hedaya): An evil leader who wants to get back into power and will do anything necessary in order to achieve his goal
Captain Bennett (Vernon Wells): A spurned former associate of Colonel Matrix, his only desire is to harm his former commanding officer in an act of retribution for his dismissal from his unit
Sully (David Patrick Kelly): A slimy and sleazy wheeler-dealer who works with Arius and Bennett, but whose specific role is never really explained to the audience
Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong): An innocent bystander who gets swept up in the conflict, eventually choosing to help Matrix in his mission
Jenny (Alyssa Milano): The innocent daughter who is kidnapped by the “bad guys”, and who represents purity and redemption, especially in her father’s jaded eyes
Colonel John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger): The musclebound hero that harkens back to the ancient tales of feats and glory, tasked with the rescue of a kidnapped innocent