Commando

Commando is a 1985 American action film directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rae Dawn Chong, Alyssa Milano, Vernon Wells, Bill Duke and Dan Hedaya. The film was released in the United States on October 4, 1985. The film was noted for its furious action and sense of humor.

The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Special Effects but lost to Back to the Future. The film's score was provided by James Horner. A commercial success, Commando was the 7th-highest-grossing R-rated film of 1985 worldwide, and the 25th-highest-grossing overall.

Plot

John Matrix is a retired US Army Colonel, who is informed by his former superior Major General Franklin Kirby that all the other members of his former unit have been killed by unknown mercenaries. The mercenaries, among them Bennett, an ex-member of Matrix's team discharged for excessive violence, attack Matrix's secluded mountain home and kidnap his young daughter Jenny. While trying to intercept them, Matrix is overpowered and abducted by the mercenaries. He is taken before their commander, Arius, a former South American dictator Matrix removed from power. Arius blackmails Matrix into carrying out a political assassination in his home country of Val Verde, where he wishes to lead a military coup. With Jenny's life on the line, Matrix seemingly agrees to fulfill the demand.

After boarding a plane, a DC-10-10 operated by Western Airlines from Los Angeles Airport to Val Verde, Matrix manages to kill his guard and jumps from the plane just as it is taking off. With approximately 11 hours before the plane is scheduled to land, he sets out after another of Arius' men, Sully. He enlists the aid of an off-duty flight attendant, Cindy, and instructs her to follow Sully to a shopping mall. Cindy first assumes that Matrix is a madman, but after she sees Sully pull a gun on Matrix in the ensuing fight, she decides to assist him in his endeavor. 

After a lengthy car chase, Matrix catches up with Sully and drops him off a cliff to his death. Taking a motel key from Sully's jacket, Matrix tracks down and confronts Cooke, a former Green Beret in Arius' employ. He impales Cooke on a table leg after a lengthy fight. Matrix tells Cindy that Arius was going to kill Jenny, regardless of whether or not he did the job. Afterwards, Matrix and Cindy break into a warehouse owned by Arius which supplies weapons for his army. Matrix learns where Jenny is being held after looking at a map of the island where Arius' villa is located.

Matrix breaks into a surplus store to equip himself with military weaponry, but is immediately arrested by the police. Cindy helps him escape by using a rocket launcher on the police car and, after commandeering a seaplane from a nearby marina controlled by Arius, Matrix and Cindy land the plane off the coast of Arius' island hideout. Matrix instructs Cindy to contact General Kirby and then proceeds to Arius's villa, killing Arius and his army. Jenny escapes to the villa's basement, but is captured by Bennett. Matrix tracks them, and after a lengthy fight, finally kills Bennett by impaling him with a steam pipe. Kirby arrives with a military detachment and asks Matrix to rejoin the unit, but Matrix declines and departs the island aboard the seaplane with Jenny and Cindy, telling Kirby "no chance."