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, hilarious slaughter fest that packs as much bang for

the buck as possible inside of an hour and a half.

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.

Filmed between April 22nd and July 3rd 1985, Stunt Coordinator and 2nd Unit Director

Bennie Dobbins does a remarkable job in selecting his stunt team and creating one of my

favourite ever action films. Let‘s go behind the stunts and find out why.

The Car Showroom Knockdown

We find Bill Duke, who‘s playing 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 showroom window and

into the street. Stuntman Tommy Rosales doubles the salesman in this phenomenal action

opener. The car is being driven by stuntman Jophrey Brown who has quite a driving

record. In the 1994 movie Speed he drove the bus as it jumped across the unfinished

freeway.

Tommy curls up in a ball on the bonnet of the Cadillac and waits for the impact. The car

drops down slightly after crashing through the window causing Tommy to bounce and roll

to his left. Brown steers to his right assisting Tommy‘s exit off the bonnet. You can see the

metal beam at the top of the window, just missing our stuntman who rolls off the car and

onto the pavement. Showered in glory, and little bits of glass. After Commando Tommy

Rosales went on to perform stunts in 8 Million Ways To Die. This was definitely one of

them.

The Matrix Home Attack & Kidnapping

A military chopper lands at the Matrix family home which happen to be a beautiful log

cabin. Incidentally 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? General Kirby (James Olson)

steps out with two other soldiers named Jackson and Harris, played by stuntmen Bob Minor

and Michael Adams, telling them to secure the area.

His home is attacked and his daughter is kidnapped. John runs outside and sees a van and

car driving off. His truck has been disabled (which is putting it mildly—the brake lines have

been completely ripped out), but that doesn‘t stop him, because he simply takes the

parking brake off and pushes the truck down a hill, leaping in as it rolls. The truck does

fairly well for an out of control vehicle, as he quickly catches up with the car, which is

driven by Cooke. Understandably the truck is hurtling down the mountainside at ever

increasing speed when Matrix loses control and crashes.

The truck is driven by Joel Kramer who is also Schwarzenegger‘s main double on the film.

The truck is fitted with a tough roll cage built inside the truck to protect Joel from injury.

The cage is also fitted to make the truck withstand repeated abuse on its journey down

the mountain. Joel can be seen in the driving seat wearing a full face crash helmet. The

roll cage is also just visible inside the driver‘s door. The truck seemed to land awkwardly

after soaring through the air, but Joel informs me that everything went according to plan

and the truck landed right on its mark.

LAX Airport

The idea of the sequence is that Matrix must get off the DC 10, he is currently being held

on, and hunt down those who have information about his daughters whereabouts. Simple

enough on paper, but filming this scene would be a really serious adrenalin rush. Director

Mark Lester had said in interviews at the time of release that Arnold Schwarzenegger had

performed many of the stunts in the film himself as finding a double was always going to

be a tough assignment. Mark has made a classic directorial error here by giving the worlds

media what they want to hear instead of the facts. The facts in this case are that

Schwarzenegger is an action hero on film and this image must be maintained. Therefore

he does what any actor can do in a physical role such as this. By that I mean ‗physical

acting‘. Stunts are performed by professionals who are employed to make the actor

appear to be the one doing the dangerous and impossible. Plus the fact they‘ll receive a

fee for each stunt. Now Arnold really wouldn‘t want to take work away from people? That

would never do for a future Governor of California.

So this is what really happened. Arnold was hanging onto a landing gear, but it wasn‘t

attached to the plane. Instead he was filmed, for his close ups, on a landing gear mock up

created by the special effects team which was mounted on a tractor trailer which in turn

was specially built for the sequence.

Then Joel Kramer takes over for the long shots. Joel hangs onto the landing gear of the

aircraft as it travels at 125mph along the runway. The pilot actually lifted the nose by 35

degrees for 30 seconds to give the illusion of the plane taking off. Then gently the nose

came back down onto the tarmac.

Having gotten onto the landing gear Matrix must now jump off. Obviously jumping from

that height for real would be suicidal so a dummy is used for the high part of the fall then

Joel Kramer returns to double Arnold for the drop into the water. This was done with the

use of a crane. Joel swings using a trapeze bar and drops into the reeds below.

Inside The Shopping Mall

The security guard sees Matrix, who hides none too successfully behind a large pillar. The

security guard goes back into the bar and radios for backup. He is played by stuntman

Walter Wyatt.

Said backup is currently flirting with two women, and after he sees Matrix, he radios for

even more backup, making him the smartest security guard in motion picture history. The

security guard approaches matrix asking what he is doing and all of a sudden the guard is

on his back seeing stars.

Jumping from landing to landing is Arnold‘s stunt double Joel Kramer.

The race to get to Sully played by David Patrick Kelly is now really on. Matrix must get to

him before he contacts his boss who kills his daughter.

Matrix tosses some more guards around, when this guy who Sully took a payoff from in one

of the mall bars inexplicably chooses this moment to run out of the bar with a gun and kill

a security guard. He‘s promptly shot dead by another guard, and in the fine tradition of

cheesy action cinema, he takes a tumble over a safety rail. In this case its stuntman Hank

Calia who takes this forty foot fall. Hank can be seen in these stills pushing away from the

top rail so he can tuck his head in ready for landing in the airbag without cracking it on

the lower landings rail.

Sully makes it to an elevator, while Cindy played by Rae Dawn Chong ends up saving

Matrix from a guard who‘s about to kill him, by knocking the guy down some stairs. Not

any old guard, but legendary stuntman Ronnie Rondell. Falling down a flight of stairs may

look easy, but it‘s one of the toughest gags to pull off. Momentum is the key. You‘ll get all

the way to the bottom if you‘ve got enough momentum to get you there. Notice how

Ronnie turns his left shoulder after the initial impact? He‘s positioning himself to land on

his back down the first few stairs. Then, with any luck, he‘ll be a passenger all the way

down.

Matrix begins to untie giant balloons hanging from the mall ceiling, as more guards swarm

him. He undoes one of the balloons and swings onto the roof of Sully‘s elevator. It is one

of the most breath-taking things I‘ve ever seen. Poise, grace and timing is required to pull

off a stunt like this and only one man has all of these and a very useful background in the

circus. Stuntman Bob Yerkes (sounds like circus…no really) performs this astonishing swing.

This truly awesome swing is approximately 100mtrs from one side to the other. Yerkes, a

trapeze man before becoming a stuntman, uses all his experience to make this gag run

smoothly. Instead of grabbing the end of the balloon as Arnie does in the first shot he

grabs a rope covered in balloon coloured material which he has replaced with two handles

which allow balance on his long journey. The world must be screaming by as he zips just

feet from the ground at the very bottom of the mall, but his great speed is also enough to

take him just above the elevator roof where he simply loosens his grip and drops down.

Just sensational!

The Car Chase & Car Roll

Right on we go. Sully manages to get to his car and drive off, only to have Matrix come

after him in Cindy‘s car. Cindy leaps in with John, and there‘s some understandable

hysterics from her, which gets an amusingly stoic reaction from Matrix. Matrix then chases

Sully for a bit, until they get onto a winding mountain road. Sully rolls his car, while Matrix

crashes into a telephone pole. Being the good guys, he and Cindy aren‘t hurt in the

slightest.

Here we see stuntman Jerry Brutche doubling Sully almost turning over his beautiful

Porsche. I say almost because Jerry has no crash helmet and is wearing a conventional

seatbelt. Traditionally when you roll a convertible onto its roof you have a place in the

foot well or across the seats that will prevent you from falling out and having your head

crushed by the road below. Or as has happened in the past the front seat is taken out

giving added head clearance, but for Jerry it was a case of making sure he didn‘t roll it

right over. A longer ramp than normal allows Jerry to judge his speed and try to grab some

of the bushes on the verge to slow the car down. Steering the whole time making sure the

car stayed flat. Eventually the Porsche stops on its side – a little worse for wear although

you‘d never know it when Matrix and Cindy drive away it what looks like a brand new

production model.

Joel Kramer drives the car into a telegraph pole and his lovely passenger is stuntwoman

Simone Boisere who was Rae Dawn Chong‘s double on the picture.

Matrix VS Cooke At The Motel

Matrix and Cindy arrive at a sleazy looking motel and head for the office. Cindy is now

completely on board with Matrix, which is funny when you think that just a little while ago

she was calling security on him. Oh well, anything to keep things moving, I guess.

They use Sully‘s key to get in and search the room. As they do, Cooke drives up in his car

and goes to the door. Matrix has Cindy pose as a hooker, and he hides as she lets Cooke in.

Cooke enters and is surprised by Matrix.

A nicely destructive fight breaks out, with the men basically levelling the room in a

manner that the Rolling Stones would envy. We even get some gratuitous nudity as the

fight crashes into the adjacent room. Cindy just watches, making funny remarks (―I can‘t

believe this macho bullshit!‖ ―These guy‘s eat too much red meat!‖) during the scuffle.

Every punch delivered with gusto and as Cooke takes most of this beating he is double by

stuntman Jophrey Brown as we can see in the first and third of these shots. The shot in

the middle is actor Bill Duke.

It ends with Cooke being punched so hard that he falls back and gets bloodily impaled on

what looks like a table leg. He expires before Matrix can get any information. So basically,

we just got a boisterously enjoyable fight scene with zero plot development.

Armoured Truck Crash

Their next stop is a gun store, for some after hours ―shopping‖. Matrix gets in by running a

bulldozer (there‘s some construction work going on nearby) through the front window.

They load up on gear, including single round firearms, a huge knife, grenades, machine

guns, explosives, and what looks like an anti-tank rocket launcher. They go to load up the

car, and naturally (because even though this is a movie, there are still certain rules of

logic that must be followed), the cops show up. Matrix is loaded into a police van (I guess

he only beats up fake cops) and Cindy follows in the car. She gets the attention of the

van‘s driver, and as they drive off, she takes out the rocket launcher.

After a misfire that blows up a building, she gets the thing turned the right way around

and disables the van with a rocket. In a related story, I just fell in love with Rae Dawn

Chong.

Stuntman Gary Mclarty is driving the truck at 40mph when he pushes a button in the cab

that fires the nitrogen cannon from under the truck and onto the road. Causing the truck

to roll…well sort of. Another 20lbs of pressure with the nitrogen and it could have gone

over onto its roof.

The Big Shootout Finale

Matrix enters the grounds of the Greenacres estate in Beverly Hills which is being used as

the villain‘s lair. Incidentally this house belonged to silent movie star Harold Lloyd.

The cannon can

be seen here on

the road after

being fired from

under the truck.

Gary Mclarty is

wearing a

helmet with hair

on it!

Dressed for combat and armed to the

teeth John Matrix strolls into battle

to rescue his daughter and kill a

bunch of stunt people along the way.

With a kill tally that goes up to 95

Commando really does make Arnie a

household name.

It‘s very difficult to outline the stunts in a movie as jam packed with action as this, so

let‘s look at a few specific ones. The ones that really stand out. Starting with stuntman

Jeff Jenson falling from the lookout tower.

Jeff seen here wearing another awful moustache reacts to the bullet hits and staggers to

his left. He pushes against the guard rail which breaks away. It‘ll never fall with him as it

is attached by wire to the rest of the tower. Jeff falls 25ft into a box rig.

Let‘s talk about air rams. There are many different design types but all air rams have a

few design elements in common - they use hydraulics, compressed air and a surface area

that the performer steps on—that is raised using the compressed air and hydraulics—to

catapult the person forward. The biggest rule to remember when using an air ram is to

never leave it in shot and give the game away!

Stuntmen Spiro Rozatos and Tom Morga perform these air ram explosions.

So you‘ve killed a bunch of people and you‘ve been the victim of an explosion that has left

you a bit worse for wear. Where do you go to hide when most of a South American army is

right behind you? Yes that‘s right. The garden shed.

Ah yes, the famous shed sequence. It‘s a little bit longer in the extended cut of the movie,

with more gore. Five soldiers approach as John removes his jacket to examine his wound.

They open fire for a few seconds, riddling the shed with bullets. My favourite part of this

moment is the one guy with the pistol. It‘s great; the other four have machine guns, while

this one dude just unloads his .45. Hilarious.

They approach the shed, and suddenly it turns into a Friday the 13th movie, as John

skewers one guy from above with a pitchfork. Two more are taken out by saw blades

thrown like Frisbees, and after killing the last two soldiers via an axe to the groin and a

machete (he chops a guy‘s arm off and throws it at him), John now has an M-60 machine

gun to play with.

Here we see stuntman Lane Leavitt in

a behind the scenes photo of him

after his haircut with a saw blade. The

other shots can be seen below.

The saw blade is run along a wire, which can just

be seen in the third shot, attached to a hair

piece on Lane’s head. Scalped….personally I

prefer the short back and sides!

Back from the dead again is

stuntman Tommy Rosales who

loses a right arm in a freak axe

swinging accident.

This next fall is from one of the great Hollywood stuntmen. Ronnie Rondell.

And finally is this look at Commando the two final killings. The first is the deposed

President Arius. An exchange of gun fire ends with Arius falling back through a window and

over a balcony to his death.

Stuntman Spiro Rasatos performs the fall into a hidden pit covered with earth giving the

impression that he is falling onto the ground without a landing area.

Music fans will know

Ronnie as the man on fire

on the cover of Pink

Floyds 1975 album ‗Wish

You Were Here‘. The

other man is stuntman

Danny Rogers.

In the first shot we see

Joel Kramer standing on

the opposite roof

shooting at Ronnie

Rondell.

Finally the Bennett matrix confrontation happens and Arnie is doubled by Joel Kramer

whilst Bennett is doubled by George Fisher and stunt co-ordinator Bennie Dobbins.

Whew, that was great! This is a lean 90 minutes of goofy perfection. Everybody does their

job perfectly. Hell, even Vernon Wells manages to overcome the goofy look of his

character and come up with something memorable. The action is enthusiastically cheesy,

the script is great for what it needs to be, and Arnold is just fantastic. Commando did

damn good business at the box office, so a sequel was planned, but never made. A script

was written by this film‘s screenwriter, Stephen de Souza, but Arnold turned it down and

it ended up being made into a little movie called Die Hard. I hear a remake is being

planned, but I can‘t imagine it being anywhere near as good as the original. Jesus, what

could be?

The final word about this production should go to Joel Kramer who not only doubled

Arnold throughout the film, but was very good in assisting me a few facts about the

action.

I asked him what it was like to know Bennie Dobbins. Joel said this. ―Bennie was a good

hearted man. Loved his craft and his family. He died in my arms during the filming of Red

Heat while we were working in the Austrian Alps. I miss him very much and not a day goes

by without me remembering all the good times we had together‖

Written and researched by Jon Auty.

Many thanks to Joel Kramer for his time and assistance.

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