Headscratchers / Commando (1985)

• Am I the only one who noticed that Matrix murders not one, but two different unarmed villains in cold blood? I found it pretty hard to sympathize with him after that.
  • It's a consequence of 1980s action movie morality, in which the Good Guy is pretty much given license to straight up kill the Bad Guys.
  • They were part of a conspiracy to assassinate a democratically elected president and replace him with a dictator and kidnapped Matrix's daughter to force him to do it, he had every motive to kill them.

• How did Matrix know the surplus store had that back room?
  • Maybe he had been a customer previously.
  • He knows what is in every surplus store in the country.

• What surplus store HAS a secret back room with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns?
  • The Best Damn Surplus Store in town!
  • Surplus Stores with secret government caches, which an agent of the government would be aware of. (Yes, you just saw a pothole for Fridge Brilliance for this movie).
  • Most likely it was also a gun store, as long as you had a license to use said weapons.
    • Admittedly, Matrix DOES have the licenses, but he couldn't really pick up the guns within the 4-hour window.

• How come the cops arrest Matrix when he's stealing enough weaponry to start a small war but don't even bother to handcuff him? How were they able to just ignore Cindy, especially when they should've seen her wheeling a shopping cart full of guns (and a rocket launcher on top) right out the front door to bring to a car on the surplus store's premises.
  • How come they didn't notice all the military surplus goods in the backseat of the car (with the rocket launcher right on top) when Cindy pulled up alongside the paddy wagon Matrix was in? How come they missed all that in plain sight and merely just thought that Cindy was just a hooker driving a Cadillac convertible?
    • Male Gaze up to eleven.
    • More like Distracted by the Sexy. And Cindy might have had time to duck out of sight earlier.

• Why didn't Matrix contact the military after he got off the plane?
  • He wanted to take care of everything himself before the military got there, so they couldn't screw things up and get Jenny killed.
    • If Matrix wanted to avoid screwing anything up, why did he indiscriminately blow up buildings when he had no knowledge or intel as to where on the compound his daughter was being kept?
    • Matrix went right to the buildings and set up the claymores, so he was close enough to see what kinds of buildings they were—soldiers' barracks. That's not where you would keep a hostage like that.

• Why did the infinite number of security guards at the mall focus all their attention entirely on Matrix, even while the bad guys were firing guns at other people in the mall?
  • Probably figured they were all members of the same gang. And remember things were pretty chaotic by that stage.
    • Even within the confines of Willing Suspension of Disbelief, such a large group of security guards being unable to identify gunshots or notice other people in the mall are actually being shot and killed is really pushing it. Given the obscenely large groups of security guards that are on duty at the mall, surely they'd be able to divide their manpower to defuse the chaos throughout the entire mall and not just focus everything they have on one person.
  • Because he is (and I quote) one gigantic motherfucker. The guards are too inept to focus on anything besides that, at least until he's down.

• When the motel door breaks down, revealing a couple in the adjacent room having sex, why is the woman positioned behind and on top of the man who is on his hands and knees?
  • he, uh... they, uh... Never mind.
  • This is why◊. (probably NSFW)

• Okay, most of these can be justified by Rule of Cool, but I've always wondered what Special Forces outfit Col. Matrix was from. He's a colonel, so that rules out Navy SEAL. He "eats Green Berets for breakfast," so that rules that out. And the Berets seem more elite than Rangers. My own guess: Col. Matrix started as a Beret but them moved on to Delta Force.
  • Note that Matrix is retired.
    • True enough, but still...
  • He's from Or Something. That's the real name of the secret government organization.
  • He's from a one-man Special Forces team called John Matrix.
    • The Delta Force does draw from the Army Rangers. That would explain his elite skills, and his dismissive attitude toward the Green Berets.
  • The Other Wiki states he was Delta Force.

• Matrix has his daughter hide under her bed in her room, unprotected, instead of safely in his gun closet, which has safe-like protection, a code needed to get inside, and a location he was going to anyway (for his guns) so he could've escorted her and made absolutely sure she would be safe? What?
  • The gun closet is also, you know, airtight. Not a smart place to have someone hide. Second, Matrix thought they were after him specifically, so he didn't want his daughter near because it might mean her taking a bullet meant for him. He's sending her someplace he thinks the bad guys have no reason to go so he can draw them off and take them out without them getting near her.

• We can accept that Matrix is strong enough to impale someone to a steam line with a large, hollow pipe, but... what happened to the big plug of Bennett's torso that should've been stuck inside it?
  • It immediately disintegrated due to the sheer combination of heat, force and Rule of Cool.

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