Commando, Part 41
[1:09:20–1:11:04]
Synopsis
At the Val Verde airport, the two men we saw arrive earlier walk up to the medical workers who are rolling the dead body away from the plane. One of the men folds back the blue blanket over the body, sees that it’s Henriques, then turns to run to a nearby phone booth. In Arius’s opulent chamber, a phone rings. Arius picks up, saying, “Si? El president aquí.” (“Yes, the president here.”)
Matrix is fully within the compound now, and he runs up to one of the buildings, takes cover, and places a claymore mine in the dirt. A guard steps out from a nearby door. Matrix, waiting around the corner, sneaks up behind him, grabs him by the neck, and stabs him in the gut.
Arius’s phone conversation is over, and he puts down the handset. He looks over to Bennett nearby and says, “He was not on the plane.” Bennett looks up at him. Arius: “Kill her.” Bennett dramatically sheaths his knife.
Matrix sneaks up behind a soldier, covers the soldier’s mouth with his left hand, and slices his throat with the knife in his right hand. Then he crouches down and places another claymore mine. Back in Arius’ mansion, Jenny is still working on getting through the barricade in the room where she’s trapped. Matrix looks up from placing a mine and sees two soldiers walking in his direction. He rises from his crouching position, and just as they begin to react, he hurls a knife at each one, and they go down. Then Matrix rounds another corner and calls out to a guard to get his attention: “Como estas?” The guard turns, and Matrix fires a spring-loaded ballistic knife into his chest.
Now Matrix dashes out into an open courtyard; a soldier in a sentry tower opens fire on him with an automatic weapon. Matrix spins and shoots at him with an assault rifle, hitting the guard and sending him flying from his tower to the ground below. An alarm sounds in the compound, and two soldiers run out from a nearby building; Matrix fires at them before they can take more than a few steps. Matrix picks up his rocket launcher and runs just a few more yards out into the open before more soldiers fire on him from behind; he stops, turns around, and takes them down too. Now several more soldiers emerge from other buildings and begin moving toward Matrix, and the sound of gunfire fills the air.
Analysis
There’s good attention to detail in and around Arius’s fancy sitting room. The room itself is incredibly opulent, with a piano, fine furniture, artwork, and expensive décor. Just before Arius receives the phone call, we see the room in a very wide shot, giving us a good sense of its grandeur. Visible here is a window to the grassy yard, and as the phone rings we see a pair of armed guards walking past it. It would be easy to miss them, but their presence in this shot helps to highlight an interesting juxtaposition here—Arius has ensconced himself in luxury, but he’s relying on a force of armed soldiers to protect him, insulating him from the outside world and any threats to his power. Matrix is determined to smash through those defenses; it seems likely that Arius’ fancy lifestyle and Matrix’s determination to save his daughter by any means necessary will clash before too long.
Matrix makes his first kills in full-on commando mode here, and he’s ruthlessly efficient. For the first guard, he chokes him with one arm while stabbing him in the gut with the other. The sound of the stab is loud and meaty—a sharp, fleshy thud that is surprisingly prominent in the mix alongside the fairly loud score playing under this scene. The kill and its eyebrow-raising sound effect go a long way toward setting the expectations for the upcoming battle; it’s going to be loud and violent, and John Matrix at the peak of his powers is going to be a scary thing to witness.
We cut straight from the brutal stab to a close-up on Arius, who has just been told over the phone that not only was Matrix not on the plane, but the henchman he sent to keep an eye on Matrix is now dead. Dan Hedaya does a good job of selling Arius’s understated fury and seething rage. He glances at Bennet while telling him the news. Then he shifts his gaze, staring out into space as he slowly, deliberately, and coldly orders Bennett to kill Matrix’s daughter. Likewise, Vernon Wells plays Bennett’s reaction effectively. There’s a slight hint of surprise and fear when he learns Matrix has escaped, and then a subtle, chilling half-smile appears when he’s told to kill Jenny.
Matrix’s second kill is even more brutal than the first; he holds a hand over a soldier’s mouth while slicing his throat. It’s clear that Matrix has a plan in mind, as these first two guards have been killed quietly, without alerting the wider force. He’s not proceeding in a blind, thoughtless rage; he’s simply not quite ready to “go loud,” in military parlance. The creativity and diversity of Commando’s kills is evident in this segment; following the stab and the throat-slice, Matrix hurls a pair of knives to take out the next pair of soldiers from a distance. Then he uses a ballistic knife, which propels a knife as a projectile with spring-loaded force, to kill an additional soldier. In other words, Matrix has used knives in four discrete ways to kill the first five soldiers he’s encountered on the island. Impressive!
Following the ballistic knife kill, the gunplay begins, and things start to get more chaotic. Matrix runs into an open courtyard; given what we know about him, he must be aware that this will attract the attention of the guards, and it does. Already we can see that Matrix has exceptional aim, even when firing from the hip, and the guards have impossibly poor aim. This is certainly an action movie trope, so it makes sense on that level—but one great thing about Commando is that Matrix’s elite commando skills have been built up so much that this actually feels pretty congruent with his earlier feats.