Commando represents the moment the Austrian body-builder famous for
Conan The Barbarian finally said it's time to start talking!
Schwarzenegger must've been emboldened by the success of
The Terminator, where stilted line readings enhanced his android assassin, but
somebody was clearly nervous, as Commando frequently plays like a concept album set to an incidental film.
Composer
James Horner seemingly scrambles to fill run time, mixing genres in a
madcap flurry of Caribbean steel drums, Asian flutes, and classic
eighties neo-noir sax. The soundtrack rarely lets up.
Each
musical style takes turns stomping on a conventional score, occasionally
double-teaming a puny bass line, or snapping the neck of something that
may or may not have been orchestral. The unusual soundtrack succeeds in
relieving pressure from simple scenes that won't otherwise be rescued
by snappy dialogue. Occasionally, it gets a little too nutty for its own
good, pulling focus in a flurry of horns and percussion. Think sax man
Bill Pullman in
Lost Highway.
I've
found myself revisiting much of the Schwarzenegger oeuvre over the last
couple of years, and I've started to see past the inflections of
beloved impersonation, to notice his performance has evolved far less
than I'd imagined.
In the case of Commando, it becomes
increasingly clear pieces of this script will follow Arnold throughout
the rest of his career. The one-liners aren't as sharp or frequent as
they'll eventually become, but the catchphrases are all here, from "
I'll be back" to liberal utterings of "
DO IT". Scenes of mall rage and the recruitment of a hapless female cohort will be reprised to greater effect in movies like
The Running Man,
True Lies, and
Jingle All The Way.
The
story of a South American dictator's effort to blackmail uber-soldier
John Matrix is almost irrelevant. Familiar face Alyssa Milano (
Who's The Boss?)
survives a barrage of cackling, creating enough of a father-daughter
dynamic in opening scenes to keep things rolling with the sub-plot of
her kidnapping. The first act twist is merely a means to beginning
Arnold's rampage of crazed revenge, urban destruction, and inflicted
Stockholm syndrome.
Rae Dawn Chong is surprisingly convincing as
Cindy, a petite off duty stewardess with a junior pilot's license. Her
flip from fear to affection for the troubled one-man army (Matrix) is a
little abrupt, but her arc to becoming a rocket launching badass
in-the-making lends fun to the mayhem. David Patrick Kelly (
The Warriors)
is a uniquely effective foil as the sleazy merc' who sexually harasses
Cindy all the way to the parking garage. His comeuppance initiates the
action and brings our heroes together.
Australian Vernon Wells is
much less convincing as the ex-army buddy gone mercenary, and John
Matrix' ultimate arch-rival. The tough talk falls short of wide-eyed
menace, mincing ineffectively in a chainmail tank top he must've
borrowed from
Mad Max 2.
The inadequacies of the character may very well be by design,
signalling a countdown to his inevitable death. It all gets a little
Home Alone
when he's reduced to chasing an escaped Jenny (Milano). His final fight
delivers more bite than the silly talk might have led you to expect.
For
fans of eighties explosions and Arnold's less sci-fi fare - Commando
will hold a special place in the canon. Otherwise, it's a mostly
middling effort, playing catch-up with
Rambo,
and destined to be outmoded by future refinements of the Schwarzenegger
formula. Franchise fans may have fun imagining it somehow fits into the
backstory of
Predator.
