Toward the end of Commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Duke go toe to toe in the ultimate motel fight scene. Duke: “You scared, motherfucker? Well, you should be. ’Cause this Green Beret’s going to kick your big ass.” Arnold: “I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I’m very hungry.” Rae Dawn Chong, like us, watches agog from the periphery: “I can’t believe this macho bullshit!”
If, paraphrasing the great Miss Jean Brodie, macho bullshit—one-inch ponytails, punching snakes, half-speed crotch kicks—is to your taste, Nick de Semlyen, the editor of Empire and author of Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Comedy Mavericks of the ’80s Changed Hollywood Forever (2019), lays on an all-you-can-eat feast in The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage.
