Rakesh's movie talk
Commando (1985)













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Directed by Mark L. Lester
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenneger, Rae Dawn Chong and Vernon Wells.

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Commando is an all-out violent, trashy, exploitative movie with very little regards for artistic integrity. And I loved it!

Of course, it depends on where you categorise this early Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner. And if you do categorise, you are mad! Arnold's movie has only one category - Arnold movie. Get it?

When I wanted to see this movie again, I told myself this, "Look. This is an 80's macho bullshit movie. It will look terribly dated. You are an Arnold fan, so just enjoy watching him kick butt." And enjoy I did.

Here, you have a race-against-time premise and all the clichés intact. It could have worked with any other heroes, say Stallone or Bruce Willis. But with Arnold, you have a superhuman. He carries three trunk, overturns a car, and rips off a car seat and a phone booth in entirety! He walks with about ten tonne worth of arms and ammunition stuck to his body. When he is not using firepower, he works with axe, shed-tools, you name it, and Arnie got it all figured out in how to kill bad guys. Compared to John Matrix (Arnies name here), Rambo is a sissy!

There are plenty of bad acting and great lines. Check these out:

Matrix: (After dropping a bad guy off a cliff) I let him go!

Matrix: (After killing a bad guy in the plane, covering him with a blanket, and putting pillow underneath the broken neck). Please don't disturb my friend. He is dead tired.

Rae Dawn Chong starts out as screaming damsel in sticky situation, but reverts to become Matrix's ally. Thank God! She does fine, and so does Allyssa Milano who plays Matrixs kidnapped daughter. She does not sit around waiting for her dad to turn up. She works on her own escape plan, which could have been much more creative.

The part that felt dated was the firepower. The final shootout was long and my mind wandered. They were uninteresting, just another video game shoot-out filmed. Then Arnold gets to the baddest guy of all, Bennet (Vernon Wells), his ex-student who respects and despises matrix. Fight ensues, without arms. Yesss! Two mean blokes beating the crap out of each other. Good sadistic thrill! He! He!

Commando is a bad, bad movie that is meant only for action buff of the eighties. Now, it meant only for Arnold fans. Stay out if you are the types who worship films with subtitles and run with snail-like pace.

Oh yes, I forgot. Arnold gets to say, "I'll be back." He's still around, ain't he?