(1987) Called on by Gen Phillips (R.G. Armstrong) for a rescue mission of a cabinet minister and others held hostage in Central America, Maj Dutch Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his team of five specially-trained commandos come under the command of CIA agent George Dillon (Carl Weathers). Dropped by two choppers into the jungle, the seven men find a destroyed army helicopter and three skinned corpses of Green Berets - what were they doing here? - hanging head down from trees.

Following their surprise attack on a guerrilla camp ("Showtime!"), they take a woman captive after killing everyone else. While Dutch and Dillon are fellow warriors from past assignments together, the major reacts to the deception: "You used to be somebody I could trust." On the periphery something's watching them through thermal vision.

As the girl attempts an escape from radioman Hawkins (Shane Black), the Predator makes its first strike, exploding out of the green jungle growth. The next victim, Blain (Jesse Ventura), gets blasted through his torso. "What the hell could have done this to a man?" asks an incredulous Dillon.

When Dillon's request for extraction is denied (position compromised), the usually imperturbable Billy (Sonny Landham), a Native American with a keen sense of his surroundings, softly says: "We're all gonna die." He's nearly dead on in director John McTiernan's sci-fi thriller - screenplay by Jim and John Thomas - of an extraterrestrial alien (one of Stan Wilson's creations), "the demon who makes trophies of men."

Camouflaged like a chameleon, occasionally exhibiting electrical arcing with its powerful arsenal, it's "Killing us one at a time," remarks Dutch to Billy who answers: "Like a hunter."

Finally cooperating and speaking in English, the young woman Anna (Elpidia Carrillo) tells the others that she saw evidence of the creature's bleeding (fluorescent green). "If it bleeds," declares Dutch hopefully, "we can kill it."

But with the loss of Mac (Bill Duke), the odds are definitely in the creature's favor, so that even Dutch, unused to being the quarry, loses his cool and flees before serendipitously discovering its blind spot.

My chief interest in watching this film was to see two brawny future governors on the screen together, leaving me disappointed when Ventura's character made an early exit.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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