Commando, Part 46
[1:18:00–1:19:44]
Synopsis
Somewhere nearby, Arius cocks his weapon. Meanwhile, Matrix climbs out onto a balcony and looks at a courtyard below, where two soldiers are deciding what to do next. Matrix leaps off the balcony, grabbing the soldiers and smashing one of them into a glass table. Then he whacks the other with his shotgun.
Arius is watching this exchange from around a corner, and now he peeks out to open fire on Matrix. Matrix dives for cover behind some flower pots and begins shooting back. After laying down some suppressive fire, Matrix hops to his feet and moves to the edge of the courtyard. Taking cover behind a statue, he shoots at Arius as the dictator runs away.
Matrix pursues him into the mansion with a shotgun, diving through a set of glass doors. Now Matrix and Arius are just a short hallway away from each other; they take turns popping out around the corner and taking a few shots. Arius heads up a fancy staircase, stopping at a landing next to a set of large windows. They trade a few more shots. But then Matrix rolls out of cover, quickly takes aim with his shotgun, and hits Arius with multiple blasts from his shotgun. The bloodied Arius tumbles backwards through the large windows and falls off a balcony.
Moments later, Matrix hears Jenny call out, “Daddy?” He heads down some stairs to find her. In the underground industrial area, Jenny continues to evade Bennett. She eventually hides in some kind of storage area filled with furniture, old trunks, statues, and artwork. Bennett reaches the same room, he and stops to carefully scan the area for her. She peers cautiously out from her hiding spot behind a plush antique chair.
Analysis
The kills are slowing down considerably here as we get closer to the movie’s final boss. Just two of Arius’s grunts get taken out in this segment, but the kills are good and a little more elaborate than when Matrix was mowing down soldiers earlier. We get to see Matrix plan out his attack on the two soldiers, then literally get the drop on them. Still, it doesn’t end there, as then he gives each of them a unique end—and both are accompanied by a punchy sound effect. The first soldier he slams into a glass table; this is shot from below the table, to emphasize the destruction in a way that literally fills the frame with shards of glass, and it comes with a solid impact noise followed by a good shattering-glass noise. The second soldier he grapples with briefly; then, when they become untangled, the soldier reaches for a sidearm. Matrix interrupts this by smacking him hard with his shotgun. The exaggerated swinging motion works perfectly with the sound—a hard thwack mixed with the soldier’s cry of pain.
Commando continues to impress with its gun-related special effects. During the initial shootout between Matrix and Arius in the courtyard, a tremendous amount of window glass is shattered, and the onscreen effect looks great. Then, when Arius runs away through a heavily windowed corridor, Matrix’s aim tracks Arius’s movement, and a ton more glass gets shot out. Effects like these really help ground the gunplay—they lend more weight and excitement to the shooting, keeping the tension high even when the audience feels pretty certain neither of these characters is going to imminently get shot. The stunt work remains strong here, too; when Matrix dives through a set of glass doors, I’m almost certain it’s actually Schwarzenegger doing it. Credit to him for his commitment—particularly because he’s jumping through prop glass while shirtless.
The score and its absence are used effectively in this sequence. The movie’s normal thrilling music is used during the initial shootout between Matrix and Arius. But it comes to a sudden and conspicuous halt after Matrix hides behind the statue, ending decisively with a final drum hit before giving way to sustained gunfire as Matrix tracks Arius’s escape through the windowed hallway. From this point onward, there’s no music in the fight. We get loud gunshots, racking shotguns, and the shattering of nearby pieces of art. Most notably, as Arius runs up the stairs, we hear only the sound of light footsteps as the two men get into position for their next moves. Between all these sounds is silence. The score finally returns as Arius falls dead off the balcony.
The moment when Matrix finally shoots Arius, defeating one of his primary antagonists, is tightly edited and shot in a way that gives the dictator a satisfying death. Matrix executes a combat role out of cover and into his firing position; this is done with a brief tracking shot that follows his movement. Then he fires his first shot, which is accompanied by an extremely bright flash of light. We cut straight to Arius getting hit; he has multiple bloody holes in his shirt, and he has already dropped his gun. Back to Matrix, in a closer shot this time—there’s another extremely bright flash of light as he fires the shotgun again. Arius continues to fall backward. When we come back to Matrix, it’s a close-up on the shotgun, with Matrix’s face out of focus in the background. When he fires this time, the entire screen goes white for a frame. Arius keeps falling backward. For the fourth blast from Matrix, we’re now even closer on the shotgun, and Matrix’s face is no longer visible; again the entire screen goes white for a frame. Finally, we get a wide shot of Arius breaking through the window glass, and then a reverse shot from the exterior of him falling to the ground. From Matrix’s combat roll to Arius falling through the window, about four seconds pass. The complex and escalating series of shots in this quick sequence result in what feels like a fitting end for the would-be dictator.
