Review by Dragan Antulov
3 stars out of 4
One of the things that should make movie fans less nostalgic about 1980s
aren't "teenage slasher" horrors. The real killers among products of
movie industry in that decade were so-called "ramboids", movies inspired
by the meteoric success of Stallone's FIRST BLOOD PART 2. That story
about lone U.S. Special Forces man that manages to single-handedly
destroy entire Vietnamese army was the product of Reagan years and
actually served as a substitute for U.S. victory in Vietnam War.
However, Stallone's stunts in that film inspired hundreds of cheap
imitations - usually such cinematic abominations that would need
centuries before they get any chance of camp appeal. "Ramboids" weren't
just monstrosities in artistic sense - in case of former Yugoslavia they
actually proved the theory of movies as a bad influence on real life
people. After being exposed to hundreds of movies with heroes who, armed
with single machinegun or a rocket launcher, manage to wipe out entire
regiments of bad guys, many young people considered war to be fun and in
1991, when war erupted in Croatia, they actually volunteered go to the
battlefields in droves. For many rude awakening about world where
bullets don't miraculously miss good guys, where automatic weapons have
to be re-loaded and where superior firepower, training and numbers
actually do matter came too late. Thousands, perhaps even tens of
thousands of people in body bags or wheelchairs could be counted as a
indirect victims of movies inspired by RAMBO 2.
The only "ramboid" that I actually liked, and, I still like, causing
certain feeling of guilt about it, is COMMANDO by Mark L. Lester, one of
those rare big studio projects that jumped on RAMBO 2 bandwagon.
Actually, it proved to be quite succesful vehicle for rising star of
Arnold Schwarzenegger and one of the most popular action movies in that
decade (that would later bring such a masterpieces as PREDATOR and DIE
HARD).
The hero of the movie is Colonel John Matrix, veteran of a unnamed U.S.
Special Operations unit, who has retired and lives a happy and quiet
life as a logger together with his pre-teen daughter Jenny. The idyllic
life is interrupted by a bunch of thugs, including his former
psychopatic subordinate Bennet, who kidnap his daughter. The move was
orchestrated by Arius, exiled dictator of a remote Latin American
country who wants to return to power and Matrix must kill the sitting
president in a exchange for his daughter's life. However, knowing that
he deals with anything but an honest people he escapes from ascending
plane, knowing that he has only 11 hours before the plane lands and
Arius finds that he changed his mind. Matrix begins the race against the
time and tries to find the location of terrorist base, with the
attractive stewardess Cindy as his only help.
One of the reason why COMMANDO beats RAMBO 2 is in a approach. While
director Pal Cosmatos, writer James Cameron and Stallone used
impressive, but utterly unrealistic visual and other attractions of
"one- man-army" concept as a tool for certain political message,
Schwarzenegger, writer Steven E. De Souza (author of DIE HARD) and
director Mark L. Lester (whose work on COMMANDO is probably his best)
considered all that special forces mumbo-jumbo as an excuse for escapist
pulp fiction fun. Schwarzenegger, who had already created an image of
invincible hero/killing machine in CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1981) and THE
TERMINATOR (1984) actually tried to give some new elements to his own
character (East German background as an attempt to give plausible
explanation for his accent). But, he also finished the creation of his
on-screen Schwarzenegger personality, including his famous one-liners
and very specific, sometimes very cruel sense of humour. His lines,
usually given before the killing of the bad guys, are probably the best
remembered element of this movie.
Almost everything in this movie is deliberately over the top. That also
includes the small army of brilliant character actors in the roles of
Arius and his henchmen. Vernon Welles, who was, until that time best
known as Mad Max's nemesis in THE ROAD WARRIOR is, despite his huge
physical presence, overshadowed by Bill Duke and Dan Hedaya. But his
final showdown with Schwarzenegger is quite impressive, anyway. The good
guys are under-represented (small roles of Bill Paxton and Chelsea
Fields are almost un-noticeable), but Rae Dawn Chong as Cindy,
displaying entertaining combination of "damsel in distress" and tough
chick that gives this movie brilliant comic relief.
COMMANDO is hardly a masterpiece, suffering mostly from the uninspired
soundtrack by James Horner (mostly re-write of his work in 48 HRS) and
the song that beats Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" in "the
cheasiest song of all times" category. Editing is sub-par in the final
showdown scenes, but only the most fanatical nitpickers would find such
fatal flaws. In its 90 minutes of non-stop action, COMMANDO manages to
achieve its goal - to entertain the audience. And, sometimes, that fact
is enough to consider the movie good.
Copyright © 1998 Dragan Antulov
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