Commando.(games based on scenes from action movies)

To the untrained eye, the ravines near Lake Michigan really did look a little like a Central American jungle. In August, with the Midwest's tropical humidity and a little suspension of disbelief, those dense forests could pass for Nicaragua--at least enough for our purposes. We were twelve, thirteen years old, we had just seen "First Blood," or "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and we wanted to re-create the movie, or at least the spirit of it--of hunting and being hunted. Within hours of leaving the theatre, we would put on our fatigues (we called them "camos"), throw our weapons and accessories in our backpacks, get on our bikes, and ride down to the ravines by the beach.

As I look back on it now, it's pretty clear that we would replicate anything we saw in a movie. Did every one of us know how to do Ralph Macchio's victory kick at the end of "The Karate Kid"? This goes without saying. After seeing "Breaking Away," did we, while riding at top speed, stick bicycle pumps into each other's spokes to see if this would indeed cause a horrific wipeout? Yes, and it did. The day after seeing "Enter the Ninja," we made our own crude and flightless Japanese throwing stars in metal shop (they weren't round, but they were sharp). Usually triggered by a movie that found new ways of depicting violence, with new equipment and in new settings--"The Road Warrior"!--we spent a good portion of our adolescent lives pretending to kill each other, pretending to break each other's arms and legs, pretending to maim, explode, murder, and die.

When we played Commando--we were calling it that even before the movie appeared--the throwing stars were among the many crucial accoutrements brought to the abandoned bridge that spanned the ravine's main gorge. There we hid our bikes and got outfitted in our various ways, doing our best heroes-strap-on-their-grenades-and-bandoliers montage. Among the six or seven of us, we all had the staple elements--Swiss Army knife, wrist rocket, eye black, as many bandannas as possible--so the equipment modifications and additions became key. I brought my homemade nunchaku ...