The movie Ethan Hawke has watched more times than he can remember: “I don’t know why”
Nobody would call Ethan Hawke an action hero. It’s not like he hasn’t been in them; he featured in the 2005 remake of John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 and the Spierig brothers’ time traveller thriller Predestination. It’s just that he’s more closely associated with heartfelt character dramas, like Richard Linklater’s the Before trilogy and the classic movie Dead Poets Society, in which he appeared as a youngster.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate the genre. He was considered for the role of Batman by Joel Schumacher before the part eventually went to Val Kilmer. He would eventually lend his voice to the Caped Crusader in the animated kids’ show, Batwheels, which centred on the Batmobile and various other heroic vehicles. So, when it comes to watching action films, Hawke considers one movie that has all others beat down.
“I think I watched Commando 49 times,” Hawke admitted to Rotten Tomatoes during a rundown of some of his favourite films. “I don’t know why. We rented Commando when I was young, and nobody returned it, and I just watched it a million times.” It should be noted that this film wasn’t included in Hawke’s official routine, but rather reminded him to include The Year of Living Dangerously, which he also apparently watched “a ton”.
Directed by Mark L Lester, Commando is a typical Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle from 1985. The governator stars as the improbably named Captain John Matrix—a character modelled on James Bond from Dr No—an ex-Special Forces man who is drawn back into a world of blood and bullets when his daughter is kidnapped. It routinely comes up in discussions of Arnie’s best movies from this time period as well as a stalwart of 1980s action goodness. It also gave the world the image of the behemoth impaling someone with a pipe, before telling someone else to “let off some steam”.
Commando was a hit, making back five-folds its budget at the box office. It came a year after Schwarzenegger lit theatres up in The Terminator, and his fans were clearly keen for a glimpse of what was next for the big Austrian. A sequel was planned, but it never materialised. A rumour circulated that a proposed script for this follow-up movie turned into Die Hard, but that was dismissed by scriptwriter Steven E de Souza.
On the subject of The Year of Living Dangerously, Hawke revealed that he had also seen it a lot on VHS, despite first viewing it in the cinema. “It had Mel Gibson in it, so I thought it was gonna be an action movie,” he revealed. “I was really disappointed. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And I got the VHS and I started watching it. There’s something about Linda Hunt’s performance, you know? ‘What then must we do?’ Travel and mysticism and romance is at the heart of that movie. And there are images in that movie that will stay with you your whole life.” Linda Hunt might not have dropped somebody off a cliff, but it seems like Hawke didn’t mind.
Ethan Hawke is a name that sounds like it could have come from an action film, so it’s no surprise that the real man felt such kinship for someone with the equally badass name of ‘John Matrix’.
