Vintage

What amounts to nothing short of an asinine plot, Commando delivers in the Campy Cool department big time.   This movie is more than cheesy, but it is a good cheesy – a uniquely tried and true American version of molded cheesy still piquant  in the cinematic refrigerator called— and I seriously say this with a straight face— the Schwarzenegger filmography.   Why that is I am not wholly capable of articulating other than to say venally that Commando is a guilty, mindless pleasure.  Perhaps this is because any non-Americans who happen across it on their forbidden channels are likely to get pissed off about its unapologetic American righteousness and superiority. 

Commando is as classic, typical American gas bag, cinematic bravado, which only America can churn out from the cow’s flimflam film nipple.    So maybe I enjoy that about it. Maybe I enjoy that this film has served as good bar humor for a number of years between me and my brother Joe.   I swear my brother Joe does the best damn “Your men make me laugh… I could kill them all in a blink of an eye…”  and “I don’t need the knife John…”  Ah, you have to see this movie to know what I am referring to. 

Still, I am not sure why I am so fond of this film.  Maybe it is like growing up as a kid and eating meatloaf.  You know meatloaf fucking sucked back then.  Over time, did it ever get any better?  Not really, except you like it now becuase it reminds you of when Mom and Dad were still together.  Or maybe, just maybe, underneath layers of proper education, there is that primal smattering of xenophobia living within me, like a bacteria which can outbreak every so often, like having been inoculated from chicken pox but still being prone to the shingles no matter what.  That is Commando for you.  It brings out that “Yeah, let’s go kick some fucking ass…” calling that dwells within all men (and is perhaps the reasons wars continue).  We don’t want to like a movie like this, we are too educated to know how wrong this mythology is, but damn, if it isn’t fun to be so right.    

Commando never once masquerades as anything other than a jingoistic egoistical testosterone-fueled action flick,  geared to elevate the American male ego like a penis pump to the limp prick.  So in that sense, it is as honest film making as you are likely to find in Hollywood.  

Can you ask for more brainless American mythology?   Best yet, the walking pile of machine gun and muscle who leads the way, is a Governor today, thus proving with one easy stroke why America is both the greatest nation in the world and understandable fodder for those that believe it be the Great Satan. And I got news for the later, here comes Matrix and there is no stopping him.    

Now if you are interested in what happens, I suppose I should turn my scope to the plot.  It is wonderfully dumb. John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger)—got to love that hard-assed name—is a retired special operations dude who once led an elite unit of presumably elites.   They were elitist I suppose.   So, maybe then this is an elitist film.  As the flick finds Matrix at the opening credits,  he has left the service to live in a secluded mountain home with his daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano).  However,  members of his former unit are being killed one by one and nobody knows why?  

It so happens these renegade soldiers manage to kidnap Matrix and Jenny.  Matrix learns that Bennett (Vernon Wells), a former disgraced member of his unit once believed to have been killed, is still alive and has been smarting about how Matrix outclassed him ever since.  By kidnapping his daughter, Bennett is trying to force  Matrix to commit a political assassination for Arius (who calls himself "El Presidente") and his gang of other disgraced U.S. mercenaries.  

What ensues is a classic Arnold flick with all the monotone poor acting of Arnold, replete with machine guns,  grenades, you name it.  Matrix and Bennett meet in a no-holds-barred death match as could be expected.  If I need to tell you anything more about who might actually prevail in a contest of this cinematic sort, then a South American fictional village is missing its “El Presidente.”   In the end, we are missing a King— gone got its head blown on off with this Campy Cool flick.