James Horner always had a bad rep with several soundtrack afficionados. Sure, there is a lot of swiping and interpolation from classical music composers, specially with James Horner’s “danger motif”, which is just Rachmaninov’s Symphony #1.

Great composer to steal from, though.

I loved Horner’s work. The Mask of Zorro, Patriot Games, Aliens, all have great pieces that are memorable and work as the lifeblood of the spectacle on screen.

With Commando, Horner goes for steel drums and saxophones. A lot of them. A mixture of the two major settings of the movies, Los Angeles and the fictional country of Val Verde (Steven de Souza’s de facto fake country), Horner’s score goes wild, matching the brash, off the hook action and dialogue of the movie. It’s a memorable score and you can see that distinction between settings on his next Schwarzenegger collaboration, the highly underrated (and fun) Red Heat, where the Soviets get eerie synths with deep droning, and New York gets your procedural score.

I’m a sucker for Commando. It’s one of the first R rated movies I saw in the cinema (they just didn’t care in Mexico) and had a ball with it. I’d venture to say it’s one of the most quoted ones, but Predator is always a close second. The plot is as thin and as bog standard as you can get with an 80s action flick: former unstoppable military dude has a close relative kidnapped, must get revenge. So good Steven Seagal based a large part of his early career on the same guidelines.

Cliché? Sure, but it fucking works. David Patrick Kelly gets his obligatory role as a scumbag (previously seen as the nemesis of The Warriors) and gets a memorable one liner before getting killed. Dan Hedaya, Bill Duke, and an unhinged Vernon Wells are perfect as cheesy villains that get a killer one liner before getting a bit of the old Arnie kill. I can’t think of another movie with so many cool villains, a satisfying soundtrack, and a tight runtime like Commando. Rae Dawn Chong is sadly relegated to bumbling companion, but never as bad as Kim Basinger having to screech her lungs off in Batman.

Give this movie a rewatch. It’s tons of fun.

-Sam J. Valdés López