Commando, Part 29
[00:48:32–00:50:16]
Synopsis
The flight attendant finds something of interest in the glove compartment. She shows it to Matrix—it’s some kind of invoice from Coastal Fuel, an aviation fuel depot. It shows a purchase by Patria Enterprises on Redondo Street. The flight attendant explains that Coastal typically provides fuel for small private planes. Matrix asks if she’s sure; she says that she’s getting her pilot’s license and this place is where her instructor gets fuel. Matrix notes that there are a lot of warehouses on Redondo Street, and Arius (this is the first time we’ve heard the dictator’s name) must be keeping a plane there. They head out in Cooke’s car.
We cut to the exterior of Patria Enterprises. There’s a big warehouse surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. They park the Cadillac just outside the fence. “This is it. Patria Enterprises,” the flight attendant says as she looks down at the invoice, then up at the building. Matrix says he thinks this is where he was earlier that day, when he was being held captive by Arius and his men.
There’s a chained padlock on a gate in the fence. Matrix wrenches on it for a moment, and the steel chain snaps. He kicks the gate open, and they head into the compound. Near the wall of the warehouse, Matrix tells the flight attendant to head in a different direction and wait for his signal. He begins climbing up a pipe to access an upper level of the building. After scaling the pipe, he pulls on the warehouse’s corrugated steel wall, dislodging one of the wall panels. He climbs in through the gap. Once inside, he cautiously peers around a corner. It’s a bustling warehouse filled with military vehicles and heavy weaponry.
Analysis
This segment is largely made up of sleuthing, as our heroes find clues that lead them to the next step of their quest, but there’s still good stuff to cover. For one thing, more than halfway through the movie, someone finally utters the name of the film’s head antagonist, the would-be dictator Arius. I don’t think this is necessarily a problem; knowing the guy’s name is less important than knowing he’s an evil dude, which we’ve clearly seen through his actions. Notably, within the world of the film it does imply that Matrix and the flight attendant (who is also unnamed so far, by the way) have been talking offscreen about Arius, as Matrix drops his name in conversation without explaining to her who Arius is.
In a neat bit of character development, we get a small glimpse into the flight attendant’s life even in the midst of the sleuthing. She notes that she’s going through flight training, and as a result she’s got some knowledge of the local aviation fuel scene—knowledge that helps the duo formulate their next steps. It’s great that the flight attendant character is not reduced to a one-dimensional love interest or person to be rescued, but instead is playing an active role in driving the plot forward. And then, Commando still manages to fit in a last-minute postmortem one-liner, with Matrix explaining that they can take Cooke’s car to Patria Enterprises—“He won’t be needing it.”
There’s some nice directorial efficiency in our introduction to Patria Enterprises. We get our first glimpse of the warehouse complex in an establishing shot that prominently features the name of the business on both the building itself and the barbed wire fence. Then, in the same shot, the Cadillac pulls up and parks. Matrix and the flight attendant talk briefly. They get out of the car and look at the building—as they do, the camera moves a bit to follow them. Matrix walks over to the locked fence gate, and only here do we finally cut to a new shot. All told, that first shot lasts a full 18 seconds. The leisurely editing does a great job of selling the almost spooky late-night quiet of the industrial area. The sound design, with distant train whistles in the background and no music, adds to the effect, as does the production design, which includes an eerie green-lit gas emanating from the warehouse.
Matrix’s easy snapping of the steel chain on the gate would be silly in isolation, but the fact that the film has already built him up as an incredibly strong guy actually makes it totally reasonable. The sound design meshes well with the editing here, too. At the moment the chain breaks, there’s a strong percussion hit as the film’s score returns, and then ominous synth music kicks in as they enter the compound. And once Matrix is in the building, editing and sound once again work together to accentuate the reveal of what’s going on in the warehouse. We first see Matrix’s face peering out of the dark, and the score builds up to a crescendo. At that peak, we cut to see what he sees—a wide shot from above of all the armaments that Arius’s men are assembling.
