But What About the Life of That Little Girl, Callahan?

As we trace back further and further into the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, we get into the movies that helped to craft his image, the ones that informed who he would become as an actor and an action star. His early works put him in a very clear box: the big, muscled guy who was good at looking imposing and being muscled. Pumping Iron was a documentary about him being a bodybuilder. The Conan the Barbarian films used his imposing visage to craft a brawny hero. The Terminator made him into a cold-as-steel, living special effect. These films could sometimes show his charisma, but they rarely gave us a sense of the man beneath the character.

Commando is a different breed of film. It’s not arguably a better movie, with a very rough and silly script from writer Steven E. de Souza and workman-like direction from Mark L. Lester, but it’s interesting because of where it wanted to push the actor at the center of it all. Schwarzenegger was making a name for himself, becoming one of the bigger action stars of all time, and that put him in direct competition with another actor who was also on the rise in the action sphere: Sylvester Stallone. Despite the fact that Commando and Rambo: First Blood Part II both came out the same year, they feel like two peas in a pod, all about soldiers sucked in for one last job to make things right.

But the two films also perfectly highlighted what each actor wanted from their careers. Stallone tried to make Rambo: First Blood Part II into a topical follow-up to First Blood, adding in more action but still attempting to keep something of a serious message (at least until the last act). Stallone was a serious actor, with the Rocky franchise under his belt, and he wanted to try and maintain that. Schwarzenegger, though, seemed to gravitate toward more lighthearted, quippy roles, ones where he could flex his charisma as well as his muscles. He wasn’t a serious actor, didn’t seem to have the desire to stretch his drama needs, and as such Commando is as light and silly as an action movie in 1985 could be… and it’s better for it.

The film focuses on Schwarzenegger’s John Matrix (which is just such a gloriously stupid name), a former U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who has since retired to spend all of his time with his little girl, Jenny (Alyssa Milano in only her second film role). They spend their days fishing, hiking, and playing on John’s massive plot of land in the middle of nowhere, and that’s all they ever plan to do. But their idyllic family life is ruined when John’s former commander, Major General Franklin Kirby (James Olson), comes to inform John that someone is killing their former team, one by one. Kirby needs John back in the field to stop the bad guys behind this assassination plot.

John, though, refuses. He’s out of the game and just wants to spend time with his daughter. However, almost as soon as Kirby leaves, the bad guys arrive and manage to kidnap Jenny. They plan to hold her hostage so that John can run a job for them: fly to Val Verde and kill the rightfully elected president so that the former ruler of the country, General Ernesto Arius (Dan Hedaya), can be reinstated in a coup. John refuses, instead finding a way to kill the men sent to keep an eye on him and stealthily sneak off the plane. Now he’s one man in Los Angeles, ready to kill anyone that gets in the way of him getting his daughter back.

Watching the film I was honestly worried that I’d have to stop the movie part way so I could review it later in the year as part of my "Five Days of Die HardThe 1980s were famous for the bombastic action films released during the decade. Featuring big burly men fighting other big burly men, often with more guns, bombs, and explosions than appear in Michael Bay's wildest dreams, the action films of the decade were heavy on spectacle, short on realism. And then came a little film called Die Hard that flipped the entire action genre on its head." feature. A lone man out to fight the bad guys that have kidnapped someone precious to him sure sounds like Die Hard territory. And that makes sense because writer de Souza, who penned this film, also penned the first two Die Hard movies. Hell, there were rumors floating for the longest time that the planned sequel for Commando (which Arnold eventually passed on) was repurposed into the first Die Hard movie, so you can kind of see the wavelength de Souza was working at.

Hell, that was really par for the course for 1980s action films in general, which Commando doesn’t really stray far from. It has all the big beats that would eventually become de rigueur in 1980s cinema. We have the big, beefy, larger-than-life protagonist, the evil terrorists with their incredibly convoluted and silly plan, the protagonist picking up an unlikely ally to aid him (Rae Dawn Chong's Cindy), and so many gun fights, explosions, and quippy one-liners. Commando almost reads like a Mad Libs of 1980s cinema, the way it assembles everything together.

And yet, that’s also why it works so well. Commando knows exactly what it is – a big, dumb, action film – and it never does anything to stray from that. If this were a Stallone film from the era then John Matrix would have to have a mission that meant something. It couldn’t have just been about his daughter, but it would have also been about going to Val Verde to aid the rebel insurgents and help prevent Arius’s return to power. Schwarzenegger’s 1980s output was never about sending a message, and as such we never have to really care about all the destruction he caused, the mayhem that ensues, or the bodies he leaves in his wake. We’re all just here to have a good time, cast, crew, and audience included.

Which is not to say that the film is perfect, even for what it is. While Schwarzenegger is great fun to watch, some of the other characters are totally lacking. Rae Dawn Chong's Cindy is a complete nothing of a character. She’s stalked by a bad guy, and then Schwarzenegger’s Matrix swoops in, effectively kidnaps her so he can use her to help him get back his daughter, and then she ends up riding along for the rest of the movie, operating in two modes. Half the time she’s there just to info dump about planes and flying because, helpfully enough, she’s training to be a pilot. The rest of the film she whines and screams and is generally quite annoying. Her role in the film isn’t really needed, and it’s pretty clear that the only reason she’s there is so Matrix has someone to talk to and the film can inform us about what’s going on.

And then there’s Dan Hedaya’s evil general. Hedaya’s performance is fine, although his character is underwritten. General Arius is a generically bad guy, prone to looking tough but lacking any on-screen heft to make him a real heavy. We’re told what he wants to do, but outside of paying men to kidnap Matrix’s daughter, he doesn’t do a whole lot but posture. Beyond that, though, we also run into the issue that Hedeya is a Sephardic Jew and, for this film, he has to put on brown face and play a South American. It’s… uncomfortable, to say the least.

Still, the primary reason we're here is to watch Schwarzenegger be an action hero, and the film knows it. Because this was early in Schwarzenegger’s career, he’s still in man-monster mode, with the film having him perform great feats of strength, like ripping seats out of cars, pulling telephone booths out of walls, and flipping cars with the power of his body. He’s not that far removed from the T-800 as far as what he does in action hero mode, but this time he also gets to smile and make jokes, and that feels about right for the actor. Schwarzenegger has never been a great character actor, but when it came to just being strong as hell, he had that in spades. Commando knows he’s a living special effect, and it uses that for all its worth.

To be clear, Commando is a very loud, very dumb, action film, but that’s also why it’s fun. It’s big and brash and very stupid, but it is so much fun that you hardly care that everything you’re watching makes no sense and is so very moronic. It’s total popcorn, empty and airy but very enjoyable, and for a mid-1980s action film, that was all that was needed. By 1985 Schwarzenegger already had two franchises under his belt and was crafting his career. It was Commando, though, that forged Schwarzenegger into the action star we all grew to know.