I am pretty sure that this film and Raw Deal were both in fairly heavy rotation on Showtime during the period when we were in the trailer and had Showtime, which meant that we would have watched it over and over. I watched it so many times that I thought, surely, I have it in the library, but, no, not until recently when I was spending a gift card and it was facing out. I didn’t think to look for Raw Deal at the time. I mean, it was only last year that I picked up Predator, which is still part of the contemporary culture–not only is it in a fairly common meme, but you still see it mentioned on blogs (and Substacks) as relevant. But Commando? Where is the love?
At any rate, Arnold Schwarzenneggar plays Matrix, a retired special Army unit, well, Commando whose old unit is getting killed off by unknown forces. A general comes to ask Matrix, Schwarzenneggar, for help, but Matrix has promised not to leave his daughter (a very young Alyssa Milano). However, the outside forces get the drop on Matrix and kidnap the girl, and it turns out one of Matrix’s old unit, a sadistic man named Bennett, faked his death and is the, what, leader of a group protecting an exiled South American dictator, and they want Matrix to go to the South American country to kill the leader he (Matrix) helped to install to replace the dictator. They put Matrix on a plane and expect to hear from his escort in 12 hours, but Matrix kills the escort, gets off the plane, and then has 12 hours to find his daughter before they know he is not in South America. 1980s explosive mayhem occurs along with some especially lame one-liners when bad guys are one-offed.
Still, it was an enjoyable re-watch, and I might even watch it again sometime.
