Arnold Schwarzenegger made his name as one of the most successful action movie stars of the 1980s and 1990s. He enjoyed his breakout role in the fantasy epic Conan the Barbarian and then became a massive star thanks to his role in The Terminator. While both of those movies helped make Schwarzenegger a star, it was his movie the year after The Terminator that remains the best action movie of his career. In 1985, Schwarzenegger was coming off his performance in The Terminator and was getting a lot of attention in the realm of 80s action movies, and he signed on to appear in a movie from Mark L. Lester, the director of the Stephen King adaptation Firestarter, which came out the same year as The Terminator.
On October 4, 1985, Commando hit theaters, and it remains one of the best Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies he ever made. In fact, the film about a retired United States Army Special Forces colonel who sets out to save his daughter from his former subordinates is the perfect action thriller.
Commando stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as former United States Army Special Forces colonel John Matrix. While living in the secluded mountains in upstate California, his former superior, Major General Franklin Kirby, arrives to inform him that mercenaries have killed every other member of his former unit and they are likely coming for him. This leads to their attack on him, and they then kidnap his young daughter, Jenny (Alyssa Milano). It turns out that the mercenaries are led by Bennett, a former member of Matrix’s team who was discharged for excessive violence. He then learns the attacks were ordered by a former South American dictator that Matrix’s team removed from power.
The movie then sees the former dictator order Matrix to carry out a political assassination that will lead to a military coup, while holding Matrix’s daughter to ensure compliance. The movie was shot on a low budget of $10 million, and it was a success at the box office, making $57.5 million. It was also a surprising success critically, earning a 70% Rotten Tomatoes score, which is very high for a 1980s action movie. Schwarzenegger continued to prove he was a bankable star, and it helped him become the biggest face in action movies of the decade, alongside Sylvester Stallone. While he had bigger movies at the box office, none were as great a pure action movie as Commando.
After making Commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to appear in several big-budget action movies in the 1980s and 1990s. After Commando, Schwarzenegger starred in the action movie Raw Deal, and then he started a series of big movies. In 1987, he starred in the horror movie Predator and the sci-fi dystopian movie The Running Man. He followed up with the buddy cop movie Red Heat and the comedy Twins before returning for the sci-fi thriller Total Recall and another comedy in Kindergarten Cop. In the 1990s, he kept his action movie roles coming with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Last Action Hero, True Lies, and Eraser.
Those last four movies were all made for considerable budgets, but none of them are as good as Commando as an action movie. The Terminator movies are arguable, but they are more sci-fi and horror than action movies, and Commando does action better than either True Lies or Eraser. That is because John Matrix is the ultimate 1980s action hero. Forget about John Rambo, who was a better broken man. John Matrix is a man who uses the biggest guns to beat his enemies, and he does it in a movie that is pure action without a hint of sci-fi or horror.
John Matrix killed 81 people in the movie, making it one of the deadliest action movies of the decade, and in every instance, the people he killed all deserved it. This was a movie that had an action hero who was fighting bad people, something that modern-day TV shows like Reacher play into well. In fact, it could be said that action heroes like Jack Reacher exist because John Matrix set the table to introduce this character type. In Commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger played John Matrix, a perfect 1980s action hero in a perfect action movie.
What is your favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie? Do you love Commando as much as I do, or do you think he has a better one? Let us know in the comments below.
