Commando, Part 6
[00:08:40–00:10:24]
Synopsis
The helicopter approaches. The daughter asks, “What’s that army helicopter doing here? You said you wouldn’t go away again. You said you were through.” The Schwarzenegger character promises he isn’t going anywhere, hugging her as the helicopter zooms over the cabin. The chopper circles around and comes in for a landing. A couple of guys in fatigues get out, followed by a man with two stars on his shoulders—a general. The general orders the grunts to secure the area. Then he calls out toward the cabin: “John? Are you in there?” He identifies himself as Kirby.
The Schwarzenegger character—John, we now know—sneaks up behind Kirby, pulls out the general’s sidearm, and playfully sticks him up. They shake hands. Kirby: “Silent and smooth, just like always.” John: “I’d better be. You taught me.” The daughter comes out to see what’s going on, and Kirby asks, “Jenny, how are you?” He then tells her he needs to speak with her father alone. Jenny comes back at him with, “Yeah? Got a warrant?”
Analysis
This section is pretty heavy on exposition and setup. We learn a lot. The Schwarzenegger’s character is named John, he used to be in the army, and he used to be away from home a lot. General Kirby trained John, so he knows what John’s capable of. Still, John has a step on him; he’s able to easily sneak up behind the general and evade his guards. We get the daughter’s name, too: Jenny. And, with her “Got a warrant” line, we begin to see that Commando has enough quips and comebacks for everyone to get in on the fun.
While this portion of the film is largely designed to convey information and put the plot into motion, there’s still some nice filmmaking on display here. With regard to sound design, the drone of the approaching helicopter continuously builds louder and louder, even as we cut back to John and Jenny. An ominous cue in the score emerges here, too, one that’s repeated elsewhere in the film. These choices effectively raise the tension as we prepare for the inevitable disruption to the peaceful life that John and Jenny have been enjoying.
There’s some skillful movie flying, too, as the helicopter heads straight for the cabin and then dramatically pulls up at the last moment. (The chopper is an olive green–painted Bell 206B JetRanger III, per the Internet Movie Plane Database.)
The editing of the scene in which John sneaks up on Kirby is notably different from the earlier scene where Jenny snuck up on John while he chopped wood. In that earlier scene, both John and the viewer have a clear indication of what’s coming. We got a point-of-view shot of her creeping toward him, and we saw him looking into the reflection on his shiny axe. But now, it’s quite different. Neither Kirby nor the viewer see what’s coming. John is visible behind him for a 5-frame blink of an eye, then grabs his gun in a shot lasting less than a second. Kirby and the viewer figure out what’s going on at about the same time. All this means that the film is strongly from John’s point of view—in these sneaking scenes, we know what he knows. In other words, John and the viewer are the ones doing the surprising, not the ones being surprised. This subtle editing touch is helping to build him up as the ultimate commando.
