The Phantom Command

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Movie
German title The Phantom Command
Original title Commando
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1985
length 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Mark L. Lester
script Steven E. de Souza
production Joel Silver
music James Horner
camera Matthew F. Leonetti
cut Mark Goldblatt
Glenn Farr
John F. Link
occupation

The Phantom Command is an American action film from 1985 directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger .

action

Colonel John Matrix, a former special forces officer, has retired and is spending peaceful and happy times with his young daughter Jenny. But this happiness doesn't last long. One day his former supervisor, Major General Franklin Kirby, visits him and tells him that someone is killing his former colleagues. When Kirby leaves, these men attack Matrix 'house and kidnap his daughter. Matrix pursues them but is overwhelmed while fighting them. Then there is Captain Bennett, also an old colleague of Matrix, whom Matrix dismissed from the special unit due to extreme sadism. Kirby had told Matrix that Bennett had also been killed, but it now turns out that the death was only fake.

When Matrix wakes up again, he finds himself tied up facing Arius, a former ruthless Latin American dictator whom he once overthrew. Since the new president of Val Verde, Velasquez, Matrix 'has confidence, Matrix is ​​supposed to kill him so that Arius can usurp power in Val Verde. When Matrix refuses, Arius has his daughter Jenny brought into the room and threatens Matrix to kill her if the latter refuses to do what is asked of him.

Matrix is ​​brought to the airport by two of Arius' minions. One should accompany him, the other should make sure that Matrix gets on his plane and takes off. When Matrix sits on the plane, he inconspicuously kills the person sitting next to him by breaking his neck and climbs out of the plane over the cargo hold and nose landing gear while it flies over a swamp at the end of the runway. Then he chases the other man, Sully. He is trying to hit a flight attendant by the name of Cindy at the airport, but she rejects him; nevertheless he pursues them. Matrix, who has watched everything, senses his chance, follows him and forces Cindy to follow Sully. Although he describes his situation to her, she doesn't believe him at first. Through his desperate doggedness in trying to catch Sully, Matrix succeeds in convincing her, and she supports him from now on in his mission.

Finally, Matrix finds the trail of Jenny: She is being held on an island in the Channel Islands that is in Arius' possession. With Cindy's help, Matrix procures weapons and a seaplane. Once on the island, he fights Arius' rebel army and himself. When he meets Bennett, the two rivals fight with knives. Matrix wins, gives the just landed Kirby, who wants to offer Matrix a place in the Special Forces again, a basket and leaves the island together with Cindy and Jenny.

Reviews

The film received mixed to positive reviews. The film review portal Rotten Tomatoes gives 71% positive reviews for the film and it has a Metascore of 51 out of 100 on Metacritic .

"Despite a portion of self-irony and a few surprising ideas, an extremely questionable action film in which countless people are carelessly butchered."

- Lexicon of international film

"Producer Joel Silver (" Die Hard ") provided the action, Oscar winner Mark Goldblatt provided the rapid cut. The stupid story with its violent finale is enhanced by funny ideas. "

- cinema.de

The Wiesbaden film evaluation agency described the film as crude and glorifying violence. In fact, alongside Rambo III , the film was one of the “record holders” of the time in terms of the number of deaths per film. Almost 100 people were killed, 74 of them in the final shooting in the last quarter of an hour of the film.

Frames

The original version of Phantom-Kommando was indexed by the federal inspection agency for media harmful to minors , but was prematurely removed from the index in September 2010 upon request. On October 15, 2010, after a re-examination by the FSK , they were approved for ages 18+ . Since the amendment to the Youth Protection Act in 2003, such a release has protected the film from being indexed again.

A version shortened by 58 seconds was previously available on VHS in Germany. The German DVD is uncut and was also indexed due to its content being identical to the indexed theatrical version, but its first edition was incorrectly labeled FSK-18. In a scene in the hotel room of the DVD version, the real voice of Schwarzenegger can be heard instead of the dubbing voice. Apart from that, the various editions of the DVD are identical.

Director's Cut

After numerous speculations about an unrated version, the Director's Cut, which was around one and a half minutes longer, was released in the USA on September 18, 2007 . The German DVD of this version followed on November 26, 2007. This version of the film was expanded to include short, violent moments in the action scenes and some dialogue passages.

publication

The Phantom Command had its US premiere on October 4, 1985. In the Federal Republic of Germany , the film opened in cinemas on January 23, 1986 and was released on video in December 1986 . On April 12, 1991, he was first on German television on premiere broadcast and on 25 January 2001 on DVD releases.

Awards

The film received a nomination for a Saturn Award for the best special effects. Alyssa Milano received a Young Artist Award nomination for her first film role .

References to the Die Hard films

Originally, the director John McTiernan wanted to shoot the sequel to The Phantom Command with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role. Schwarzenegger turned down the role, however. So the project became the movie Die Hard , in which Schwarzenegger was also supposed to get the lead role, but declined again. Both Die Hard 2 and Phantom Commando deal with a fictional country called Val Verde in which an authoritarian ex-dictator is trying to regain power. The scripts were each written by Steven E. de Souza .

Remake

In 2010 a Russian film with the title Phantom Commando - The Return was released in Germany on DVD , which sees itself as a remake and repeats the plot of the 1985 film. The strip 2008 is produced in the original Den 'D .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Release certificate for Das Phantom-Kommando . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry, October 2010 (PDF; test number: 56 009 V).
  2. ↑ The Phantom Command at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  3. ↑ The Phantom Command at Metacritic (English)
  4. ↑ a b The Phantom Command. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 8, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ↑ The Phantom Command on cinema.de
  6. ↑ Mike Lowrey / Blade41: Phantom Command is deleted from the index. In: schnittberichte.com . September 30, 2010, archived from the original on September 30, 2010 ; Retrieved September 30, 2010 .
  7. ^ Cut report German FSK-18 VHS - Uncut theatrical version
  8. ^ Section report SPIO / JK - Unrated Director's Cut
  9. ↑ The Phantom Command. In: Zelluloid.de. Archived from the original on January 27, 2017 ; accessed on September 8, 2018 .
  10. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/trivia
  11. ↑ Cinema : Background Article Full of Role: Hollywood's Casting Carousel. Edition 02/11, p. 80.