Commando: The 80's at its Best

What do you think of when 80's action films come up? Most likely a cheesy soundtrack, bulging muscles, armies of enemies, bad one-liners and dogy bad guys, and the movie which most perfectly encapsulates all these things is Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando.

The soundtrack for Commando was created specifically and sounds like a dodgy porno, but hey, it's the 80's! It also includes an epic 14 minute track called Infiltration, Showdown and Finale. Brilliant. Then for the bulging muscles, Schwarzenegger throwing a phone booth. Need I say more.

Now when most movies boast an 'army of enemies', they don't really mean it, there's just a lot of bad guys (see Cobra). Not Commando, the titular character, boasting the greatest character name of all time: Col. John Matrix, literally takes on an army. The private army with which the head honcho is planning to overthrow the President of the fictional South American country, Val Verde, is dispatched with ease by Matrix who uses 7 types of guns, grenades, kinives, machetes, axes, pitchforks, a steel pipe, furnace door, circular saw blades and the coup de gras of a multi-shot rocket launcher. The extensive arsenal is yet another feature of the 80's action film.


Bad one-liners doesn't take too much explaining, so I'll give you examples:
After killing a guy on a plane he puts a blanket and hat on him and warns the stewardess "Don't wake my friend, he's dead tired."
After impaling his arch nemesis with a pipe which releases steam, "Let off some steam, Bennett."
There's a hell of a lot more too.

Now I mentioned him a little earlier, but the main bad guy, no not the Presedential hopeful, but Bennett is one dodgy dirtbag. All you need to see is his manic expression when facing off with Matrix and his gisgraceful outfit, now I don't pretend to know anything about fashion but it is simply ludicrous.

There's a lot more 80's cliches like some obligatory nudity, baddies that can't aim a gun, a ridiculously outlandish sequence of events leading to the climax and a feisty love-interest. I must also point out the rampant homo-eroticism (I'm looking at you speedo scene), which is as much a part of the 80's as shoulder pads (really, think about Top Gun). All this amounts to a big ball of cheese, but damn is it fun. Whether or not you like it, there is no doubting that Commando epitomises the 'genre' of the 80's action film.