Women of Action: Rae Dawn Chong – Commando
John Matrix just wants his daughter back. Shame on the men who decided that crossing Arnold’s Matrix was a good way to accomplish their goals. Bennett (played by Vernon Wells) wanted revenge on Matrix for booting him out of their special operations team and Arius (Dan Hedaya) wanted to use Matrix as a tool to take out his political enemies. Either way, the inclusion of California girl Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong) probably didn’t factor into their violent plans.
Before she was kicking it with Mick Jagger or hanging out with Prince, Rae Dawn Chong was just a living her life in the Commando world, cruising through the local shopping mall trying to keep dweebs like David Patrick Kelly from hitting on her. She was probably thinking of getting her brows done or maybe buying some new sandals for beach season when the hulk of a man known as John Matrix entered her life. She would play such a pivotal role throughout the rest of the movie that without her help there is no way that Arnold would have been eating ice cream and doing karate with his daughter ever again.
Rae’s Cindy is often an overlooked part of Commando. She doesn’t tear through a battalion of well-armed soldiers or hold a man off the edge of a mountain by his legs, but her contributions are equally as important. If Rae hadn’t been there then Matrix would have never gotten the information from Sully that led to them finding and viciously killing Bill Duke. After a shopping spree at the local gun store, the pair then find a plane and Cindy flies the hell out of it all the way to the fictional country of Val Verde. Without Rae’s flying ability, I’m afraid Matrix would have still been waiting on that Delta flight.
Even though the love scene shot between Arnold and Rae was cut from the movie, I just know that the awesome sounds of Power Station would have made that one of the hottest love scenes of all time!
