[caption id=”attachment_1313” align=”alignnone” width=”500” caption=”Schwarzenegger scoping out the 2008 DNC”][/caption]
In Mark L. Lester’s 1985 action film Commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Colonel John Matrix kills eighty-one people in ninety minutes. Eighty-one bad guys, most of them thin-mustached South American mercs hired by a deposed dictator. Eighty-one bad guys, a few of them former U.S. special ops badasses. Eighty-one bad guys, killed by machete, M16A1 machine gun, circular saw blade, grenade, Desert Eagle pistol, claymore mine, knife, steam pipe, and splintered chair leg.
I miss those analogue action movies of the 80’s, the ones where some former Special Forces grunt is pulled back into service because his wife/daughter/former partner is raped/kidnapped/killed. I first saw Commando in 1987, my freshman year of high school. It was The Rocky Horror Picture Show for as-yet-unlabeled Gen X’ers raised on violent video games, the Cold War, and Malibu from American Gladiators.