Commando, Part 13
[00:20:48–00:22:32]
Synopsis
Sully bids Matrix and Henriques adieu: “Hasta luego, fellas.” The two men climb up to the plane using one of those airport stair cars. The airliner is a Western Airlines DC-10. Sully watches from the gate as they board, and Matrix stops for a moment to stare back at him. Sully gives a wave, and Henriques shoots Sully a finger gun. Henriques and Matrix enter the plane.
A flight attendant directs Matrix to his seat: first class, seat 7A. Henriques is in 7B. As they take their seats another flight attendant asks Matrix if he has any carry-on luggage. He gestures to Henriques: “Just him.” Henriques is not amused: “Open your mouth again and I’ll nail it shut.” The flight attendant returns to tell Matrix to fasten his seatbelt, and he takes the opportunity to ask her for a blanket and a pillow. She pulls them from the overhead bin for him; at the same time, he watches as other flight attendants pull the plane’s door shut. The plane begins to taxi. Sully watches it back away from the gate.
Inside the plane, a flight attendant is announcing the beverage and meal service over the PA system. Matrix unfurls his blanket, leans forward as if to adjust it, then takes advantage of the noise cover of the PA announcements to throw his left elbow hard into Henriques’s chin, knocking him out cold. Matrix nonchalantly puts the unconscious Henriques into a headlock and twists his neck, killing him. The passengers around him don’t notice. Matrix props Henriques’s head up with a pillow, throws the blanket over him, and places a hat on his head.
Analysis
Matrix’s “Just him” one-liner here, and the response from Henriques, is notable in that it might be the only time in the film someone tells him to stop saying funny stuff. It demonstrates the power dynamics at this point in the film—for now the bad guys have all the cards, and Matrix has to play along. Still, he’s willing to keep tormenting his captors with verbal jabs.
The sequence of shots in which Matrix gets the blanket and pillow has an interesting editing flow to it. We’ve seen that Matrix is always calculating his next move in a situation, and as the plane’s door closes, his range of possible moves narrows dramatically. As the flight attendant is grabbing the items from the overhead bin, we hear the sound of the door closing, and Matrix instantly jerks his head in that direction. Starting when she opens the overhead bin, we get the following sequence of shots in the nine seconds between 21:43 to 21:52.
The flight attendant opens the overhead bin.
Close-up on Matrix looking back to the closing plane door.
Medium shot of a second flight attendant closing the door.
Back to Matrix looking toward the door. The flight attendant has retrieved the blanket/pillow, and they’re now out of focus in the foreground.
Close-up on Henriques adjusting his seat-back position.
Back to the shot of the door closing.
Back to Matrix looking toward the door.
Back to the door as it finishes closing.
Close-up on the flight attendant as she hands the blanket and pillow to Matrix.
Close-up on Matrix as he turns his gaze back away from the door and takes the blanket and pillow.
Ten shots in nine seconds—less than a second per shot. Matrix is calculating his options as the door closes, but at the same time he’s setting a plan in motion for using the blanket and pillow. He needs to neutralize Henriques and then escape the plane. The moment he asked for the blanket and pillow, he had solved the first problem. As he watches the plane’s door close, he is recalculating solutions for the second.
Speaking of Henriques, Matrix’s killing of him is another spot where ordinary logic doesn’t necessarily apply. He smacks him pretty hard, sending Henriques’s magazine flying. And then the crunch of the neck snap is fairly loud, too. The film gives us a wider shot to show a few passengers nearby—their performances suggest that they’re just sleepy, so that seems intended to help justify what’s happening. The PA system is going, too, and maybe the first-class passengers in general are just more aloof and uncaring. So perhaps there’s enough justification for no one noticing the incident—I’m just saying, Matrix hit him pretty hard.
