Cult Classic: Commando

Forget Terminator 2, forget Total Recall and forget Predator. If you want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger in the greatest action role he has ever had, try Commando.

There are roughly three basic types of cult films. The first are films that are critically reviled but become audience darlings and are held aloft to prove the perceived misguidedness of critics - take the Oscar-snubbed likes of Fight Club or Drive.

The second are films which bypass audiences completely upon release and later find a cult following after home release - Donnie Darko, for example. Lastly, there are the likes of Showgirls, Tango & Cash or Commando - movies that are just so incredibly bad that you're entertained from start to finish.

Commando is such an outrageous movie that it could nearly play as an ironically over-the-top pastiche of Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1980s action movies, with Arnie in the lead role.

Of course, when the Austrian Oak actually went down that road with Last Action Hero, it ended up a loss-making disaster, which makes Commando even more enjoyable.

"Dead tired" - get it? Eh... eh?

Commando casts Arnie as the ludicrously-named John Matrix, a retired Special Forces Operative Colonel whose daughter (a 12-year-old Alyssa Milano) has been kidnapped by mercenaries. Yep, his daughter was kidnapped. If you thought Liam Neeson's vengeance was fierce in Taken, you've seen nothing yet.

In a 2007 documentary Commando: Let Off Some Steam, it was declared that 81 people are killed during the 90 minute running time of Commando. That's almost a death a minute, while we'd estimate that Arnie has an absolutely risible pun for at least every second kill.

The film works simply because it doesn't take itself too seriously and of course, grows even more fun the more beer you down while watching it. It is perhaps the dumbest yet most tongue-in-cheek movie of Schwarzenegger's career and for that reason alone, its lack of ambition works in its favour time and time again. They really don't make them like they used to, what with today's new-fangled 'character development' or 'plot twists'.

Sadly, although a sequel based on the 1979 book 'Nothing Lasts Forever' was scheduled to go ahead, Arnie relented and decided not to revisit Mr Matrix. In the end, the script was reworked with a new lead character and actor, although their efforts probably won't ring any bells - Bruce Willis in something called Die Hard?

For more cult films, check out the Jameson Cult Film Club.