Commando (1985)
Directed by Mark L. Lester
John Matrix, the former leader of a special commando strike force that always got the toughest jobs done, is forced back into action when his young daughter is kidnapped. To find her, Matrix has to fight his way through an array of punks, killers, one of his former commandos, and a fully equipped private army. With the help of a feisty stewardess and an old friend, Matrix has only a few hours to overcome his greatest challenge: finding his daughter before she's killed.
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What critics compared Commando to
Beyond that, "Extraction" is a pretty numbing affair, reminiscent of early Arnold Schwarzenegger movies ("Commando" comes to mind), with a pinch of "Man on Fire."
George P. Cosmatos (l'auteur du Rambo: First Blood Part II) is as much of a point of reference as Boorman's Emerald Forest and Herzog; the majestically ripped main bad-guy (Raoul Trujillo) could be patterned on Vernon Wells in The Road Warrior (or in Commando), the second-string rotter (Rodolfo Palacios) might be Billy Drago, the balls-eating bit (and the subsequent burning-balls bit) are from Porky's, perhaps.
It's not quite ridiculous enough to be truly great like a "Commando" or a "Red Dawn," but it can stand on its own feet and make you want see another one, assuming you're the kind of person who wanted to see this one.
Harkening back to some 1980s classics such as Predator, Commando and Rambo, the film feels old — but old in a good way, where special effects are live-action stunts and the material is treated seriously with a touch of wryness.
The major studios, with big budgets and movie star mojo, jumped on the action wagon long after it had established a stranglehold on the movie-going habits of the decade (Lethal Weapon,1987; Aliens, 1986; Robocop, 1987; Commando,1985).
Pearce ( The King’s Speech ) channels some of the great action stars of the past – Bruce Willis’ John McClane from Die Hard , Mel Gibson’s Riggs from Lethal Weapon and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s John Matrix from Commando – in crafting Snow, an instantly likeable lead who has that ‘I wish I was as cool as this guy doing anything’ charisma.
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This is hammered home in unconventional ways, particularly with regard to Sharon’s arc; her friendship with a co-worker, Carol – played by Rae Dawn Chong, who served best as the hilarious comic relief in Arnie’s Commando almost thirty years ago – might seem especially obvious, but it unequivocally works.
Sharon's officemate Carol (Rae Dawn Chong, "Commando," "Cyrus") tries to dispel her anxieties that she's being made the butt of a joke and encourages her to be open to the romantic possibilities but anyone should be able to figure out what's really going on here too.
¿Quién no recuerda títulos como Desaparecido en combate (Joseph Zito, 1984), Commando (Mark L. Lester, 1985) o Cobra, el brazo fuerte de la ley (George Pan Cosmatos, 1986)?
After graduating from B-level action blow-outs like Commando and Raw Deal to the likes of Total Recall and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the 1996 action throwback Eraser felt and played like a big budget variation on the kinds of films that propelled Schwarzenegger to stardom in the first place.
These films were legendary, from Rambo (1982) to Commando (1985) and Lethal Weapon (1987), Cobra (1986) and Action Jackson (1988), and, of course, Predator.
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Not until I saw Taken (2008) and realized it was the redux of Commando (1985) that I always knew I wanted.
The family element (with Neve Campbell as Will's wife) is key, providing the rationale for Will -- the latest version of the right guy in the wrong place -- to engage in a series of death-defying feats, in much the way Arnold Schwarzenegger hit the kill (and kill and kill) switch when his daughter was kidnapped in "Commando."