Commando, Part 27
[00:45:04–00:46:48]
Synopsis
Matrix and the flight attendant continue searching the room. Outside the motel, a big Cadillac pulls into the parking lot. It’s Cooke (whose name we now know because Sully said it while Matrix was questioning him). He gets out of the car and walks over to the door. Inside the room, Matrix and the flight attendant hear a knock. Matrix: “It’s Cooke. Mess up the bed.” He heads for the bathroom and turns on the shower. There’s more knocking. Matrix grabs the flight attendant’s blouse and rips it open by one button. “Remember, you had a good time with Sully. Open the door.” Matrix hides behind the door as she opens it slightly.
Cooke is outside the door, and he looks the flight attendant up and down. “Where’s Sully?” The flight attendant responds, “In the shower.” Cooke: “Who are you?” She responds playfully, “Room service.” Cooke tells her to open the door and step back. He enters the room and yells for Sully. Behind him, Matrix closes the door, taps Cooke on the shoulder, and then punches him when Cooke turns around. Cooke tumbles to the floor. He gets back up, pulling a pistol. He tries to fire it at Matrix, but Matrix has already closed the distance and knocked his arm aside; the shot goes into the wall. The flight attendant runs for cover.
Matrix and Cooke struggle over the gun, and two more shots ring out. Matrix is able to smash Cooke into the glass bricks at the back of the room, and the gun is tossed free. Matrix flips Cooke over the bed, sending him to the floor again. But then Cooke delivers a kick that hits Matrix in the jaw. Cooke gets up and squares off against Matrix in a fighting stance. “You scared, motherfucker? Well, you should be. Because this Green Beret’s gonna kick your big ass.”
Analysis
Cooke stole a Cadillac from the dealership way back at the beginning of the movie, but the one he’s driving now is a different color—apparently he has a taste for Cadillacs. When he gets out of the car, we’re still getting the atmospheric neon lighting that appeared in the previous segment. Glowing circles of green and red anchor the right side of the frame, and the neon decorations even reflect off the side of Cooke’s Cadillac.
Once again, Matrix is a quick thinker, coming up with a plan to deal with Cooke almost immediately upon hearing the knock at the door. (Or perhaps he even had this plan ready to go from the moment he got to the hotel room.) He tells the flight attendant to mess up the bed, turns on the shower, rips her blouse, and gives her a backstory. She’s startled but quickly understands his plan; her willingness to go along with it shows the trust that has developed in their relationship.
There are some interesting framing choices in the hotel scenes that make the viewer feel as though they are actually in the room, surreptitiously watching what’s happening. When we pan over to the door as the flight attendant prepares to open it, a large, out-of-focus lamp partially obscures our view of the door; it’s as though the viewer is hiding back here watching the scene’s tension ratchet up. At one point we also get a point-of-view shot from the flight attendant’s perspective; she takes cover behind some vertical bars, and we get a view of the fight obscured by those same bars.
The green neon lighting is emphasized when the flight attendant opens the door for Cooke; his face is illuminated in green, and the edge of her face takes on the same hue. Interestingly, in the reverse shot, when we see the flight attendant head-on, there’s no sign of the green color on her face. Practically speaking this is probably just because they used two different lighting setups for the shots, but the green lighting does give the bad guy, Cooke, a more ominous feel.
Matrix’s fight with Cooke has a visceral, close-quarters quality that works great in the tightly enclosed space. Matrix gets the first hit for free, but after that the two men are grappling for survival. The gunshots are appropriately dramatic—as with earlier in the film, some of the shots are accentuated by a full frame of white rather than an ordinary muzzle flash. And in terms of the sound design, there’s a slight echo effect to each shot, which makes sense in the hotel room setting. Each noise stands out in the mix, as there’s no music behind the fight—just the sound of the shower in the background. The sound of Cooke’s kick to Matrix’s face is especially meaty and crunchy.
The segment ends with Cooke threatening Matrix and telling him to be scared—surely Matrix will have a retort for that next week.
