Retired Special Forces Colonel John Matrix (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is forced to go on a one-man mission to save his daughter when she is kidnapped by a former, disgraced member of his team.

Commando is a quintessential 1980s action movie and is refreshingly straightforward. Running at a lean ninety minutes, it gets straight to the point. An opening montage establishes Matrix as a devoted single father before Major General Kirby arrives with news that members of his former Special Forces unit are being assassinated. Within minutes his daughter has been kidnapped and Matrix is being blackmailed into carrying out one final mission for the disgraced former President whom he helped depose. Suddenly the clock is ticking, with Matrix having just eleven hours to save his beloved daughter.

Along the way Matrix enlists the reluctant assistance of air stewardess Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong), who helps punctuate the silliness of the set-up with some well-timed sarcastic remarks: “I can’t believe this macho bullshit…”

Perhaps it is nostalgia on my part, but Commando is a wonderful diversion in the milieu of action movies. There are no double crosses, no complications, just Schwarzenegger and his rippling muscles on a ninety-minute mission that involves him killing a small army, cracking one-liners and saving his daughter. It features a powerhouse score from James Horner, the gunfire sounds like cannons and identikit South American soldiers fly through the air whenever grenades explode nearby.

Perhaps the thing that stops it being forgotten amongst the other entries in the genre is its humour. Schwarzenegger delivers his one-liners with a hilarious deadpan tone, Rae Dawn Chong keeps the sarcasm flying and villain Bennett (Vernon Wells) does some wonderfully perverse things with his line deliveries.

The only reservation I could possibly offer is that the film’s age inevitably shows. Of course, the 1980s action genre foibles I mentioned above should be taken as a feature rather than a failure. But it is worth remembering that this was a time when action stars were not expected to move like athletes and realism was rarely at the forefront of the genre. So long as you are not expecting the athleticism of Keanu Reeves in John Wick, you are unlikely to be disappointed.

Commando remains one of the defining action films of the 1980s. It may not have the sophistication or athleticism of the genre’s modern classics, but few action films are as lean, as funny or as effortlessly entertaining. Whether revisiting it or discovering it for the first time, it remains ninety minutes very well spent.