This gem, straight from Joel Silver, is the most gleefully overblown ‘80s action film ever. It’s essentially a live action comic book, and is in many ways the quintessential Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It’s a lean ninety minutes of Arnold being Arnold: Big, muscular, smart-assed, and violent.

Released five months after Rambo: First Blood Part II cleaned up at the box office, Commando is a huge, bright (“bright” as in well-lit, not smart), hilarious slaughterfest that packs as much bang for the buck as possible inside of an hour and a half. Just for the sake of clarity, I’m recapping the director’s cut from the special edition DVD; differences will be noted. Yes, just like Road House, this movie earned the deluxe treatment, with a commentary track, some featurettes, and a nice new transfer.

A word of warning before we start: This is maybe the most over-the-top macho action flick you’re likely to encounter in your lifetime. Side effects may include:

• Sweating
• Getting a subscription to Guns & Ammo
• The desire to eat red meat
• The desire to eat raw red meat
• The desire to acquire that raw red meat by killing an animal with your bare hands
• And last but not least, possible loss of equilibrium due to laughing too hard.

I give it 10 out of 10 Austrian oaks. Let’s check it out.

We begin with a garbage truck driving through a quiet suburban neighborhood. In one house, a husband and wife are woken up by the truck. The wife guesses they changed the trash pickup schedule, and the next thing we see is the husband running outside with two full garbage cans just as the truck stops. Two garbage men come off the truck, and one of them is played by Joel Silver regular Bill Duke.

The husband says he was worried they’d miss him. After the inevitable “Don’t worry, we won’t” from Duke, he and his buddy reveal guns, and bloodily ventilate the guy. Duke adds a volley after the guy is down, just to put an exclamation point on the scene.

We next find Duke, who’s playing a guy named Cooke, being shown a car by a slick salesman. Cooke gets into the car, and the salesman thinks he’s making a great sale. But then Cooke guns the engine and runs over the guy, sending him crashing through the display window and into the street. Given he’s a no-name character in the opening minutes of an ‘80s action movie, this of course kills the salesman stone dead.

Who says you never learn things from these kinds of films, eh? For instance, I never knew car dealers let customers start up the display models. Hell, I’m pretty certain they don’t even let you see the damn keys, let alone allow you to start up the engine on the salesroom floor! If they ever did, I would guess this sort of thing is why they stopped.

Next, we see Bennett (Vernon Wells) walking along a dock towards a ship. He’s observed by Cooke and his buddy from the first killing, and as Bennett pulls out of the dock in his boat, the ship explodes. Not a big, huge, Joel Silver movie explosion, but rather a “distract the audience because this guy will be back later” explosion.

Some kickass action movie music courtesy of James Horner starts up. Cut to a lovely bit of wilderness as a pair of boots stomps across the terrain. The music builds to images of a chainsaw, and bulging biceps. Finally, we get a nice huge movie star close-up of Arnold in the role of John Matrix, our muscle-bound hero for the evening.

Arnie is sporting the rugged outdoorsman look here: jeans, a white tank top, flannel shirt, and... Well, he’s also carrying a tree on one shoulder, which is a good foot or so taller than him. I suppose that’s one way to establish the hero as a major badass. If nothing else, it makes the Marlboro Man look like a chain-smoking, horse-loving pussy.

John stops for a moment (so we can get a shot of him backlit by the sun) before heading to a large cabin. How much do you want to bet he built this thing with his bare hands, and used his own sweat to make the pieces stick together? Five minutes in, and Arnold is already making Chuck Norris look half-assed.

Our tribute to the wonder that is Schwarzenegger continues, as he chops wood with an axe. Given how over the top this film is, I’m shocked we don’t see him chopping logs with his bare hands. I especially love how periodically he’ll stop and turn his head a little, as if he can hear and smell everything around him. I think this is about as close as we’ll ever get to seeing Arnold act subtly.

Oh, but there is a point to all this, dear reader. As he chops the wood, John catches a glimpse of someone approaching in the reflection of his axe. He turns suddenly and... it’s his daughter Jenny, played by Alyssa Milano. The music suddenly turns sentimental for a bit as we get a hilarious... um, I mean sweet and heartfelt montage of John being a good parent.

First, Jenny and John are sharing ice cream cones. At one point, she shoves her cone into his face, causing him to laugh and smile. Now, if you’ve ever seen the big guy laugh and smile, then you know it’s not his best look. Given his facial structure, every time he laughs and smiles he looks mildly retarded.

Come to think of it, it occurs to me that if you took someone who had never heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and didn’t know he was Austrian, and just showed him a State of the State Address or some random interview, that person would come out thinking, “Whoa, they elected a retard as governor! Twice! California really is completely insane!”

Former Special Ed Governor aside, our montage continues as the title of the movie appears over Matrix teaching Jenny some martial arts moves. Sadly, this never pays off. Come on, wouldn’t you love to see Alyssa Milano jump kick Dan Hedaya? That’d be pure comedy gold as far as I’m concerned.

Next, Matrix and Jenny are feeding a deer, and I gotta say, this works ten times better at establishing the family aspect than any of the other long, drawn out family scenes you find in other action movies. Yes, Mr. Norris, I am looking at you. Not only does this part do what the film needs it to do, but it’s also pretty damned funny to see the Terminator feeding a deer.

Next, they’re fishing happily and walking across rocks, and good lord, this film is even over the top when there aren’t bullets flying and explosions going off! Seriously, the opening credits here walk that fine line between acceptably sweet and sentimental, to the point you want to beat your own head in.