When The Expendables was first announced it sounded to good to be true as it’s an old style action movie co-written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone; who’s proven his worth in each one of those categories with the Rocky series alone, and has grown to be one the biggest action stars of all time (Rambo still remaining the epitome of the action legend); alongside some of the biggest action names from his generation (Arnold Schwarzenegger (Commando), Bruce Willis (Die Hard), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), and Dolph Lundgren (Universal Soldier); and the cream of the crop from the current generation of action heroes; Jason Statham (The Transporter), Jet Li (Hero), ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin (The Condemned), Terry Crews (Gamer), and Randy Couture (Redbelt); so with its release looming, we went to check out the film, and find out if The Expendables really can live up to the hype, and best the dreams of every living action fan.
The film follows a group of mercenaries known as The Expendables, who are led by a calculating strategist and lighting quick warrior (despite his age) named Barney Ross (Stallone), and hired by a mysterious man called Church (Willis) to remove a murderous dictator from his position of power on a small island in the Gulf of Mexico.
The team; which consists of Barney, an ex-SAS knife expert named Christmas (Statham), close-quarter combat expert Yin-Yang (Li), shotgun enthusiast Caesar (Crews), demolition expert Toll Road (Couture), and the soon to be ex-member Gunnar (Lundgren), who’s something of a loose cannon; then embark on their mission, meeting a young freedom fighter who has her own secret, and find that the dictator they have been hired to remove isn’t actually running things on the island, and that a ruthless ex-CIA operative (played by Eric Roberts, Runaway Train) and his violent henchman (Austin) may be the real targets.
The game is then on to rid the island from its oppression, save the girl (who is in danger mere minutes after she meets up with Barney and Christmas), and try to avoid capture and death at all costs, and from all directions, and it’s a game that The Expendables aim to win by maiming, killing, and generally blowing up, anything that gets in their way (as during the movie, literally everything and its mother explodes – twice).
But even before the explosions kick off, it’s clear that The Expendables is going to be action packed from start to finish; as within minutes of opening, a Somali pirate it literally ripped to pieces from the force of a rather large weapon; and the action continues to remain properly brutal throughout; with so many gunshots, knife slices, and bone snappings packed in, it’s guaranteed to have even the hardest action fan wincing, but simultaneously smiling with joy.
And smile you will, because aside from the amazing action there’s also some pretty good comedy banter used to fill time between kills, and effectively beef-up the relationships between the characters (including an excellently timed joke directed at Mr Schwarzenegger, that serves well to slice through the testosterone filled scene that puts the Governator in the same shot as both Stallone and Willis; three legends that are really too big to share the same scene, but manage to pull it off by using the very thing that holds the scene back, their star power) and some well placed emotion (Mickey Rourke’s emotional monologue is delivered pitch perfectly) that does a brilliant job of humanizing the characters.
And it’d be easy to forget the human side of The Expendables; especially seen as how the team are such proficient killers that they come out of most battles (where they are always outnumbered) with nary a scratch on them (except for Stallone getting battered in a rumble with Austin; which was a great fight, but too well publicized), and that it puts the biggest names from action yesteryear alongside modern day action stars (but despite the generation gap, the experienced stars more than hold their own against the younger lads), in what in undeniably the best action cast ever assembled.
The cast also work together brilliantly; Stallone and Statham (who are really the movie’s frontmen) are great partners, and bounce off each other as well as any action duo ever has; and as each member is used so well, there’s not really any breakaway stars, but more of a well represented, equally matched, team. Crews and Couture receive notably less screen time than some of the others, but still fit into the group well, and excel during the action scenes, as do both Jet Li (who receives more screen time but is, more often than not, the butt of the team’s jokes) and Dolph Lundgren; who again receives a decent amount of screen time, and has thankfully shaken off recent roles, such as his brief return in Universal Soldier: Regeneration, and delivered the finest performance of his career.
The plot is fairly thin, requiring no thought to understand, yet is extremely easy to get behind, and is a pure cliché, but one written by the best in the business, and the people that created the format before it was a cliché, meaning that it works exactly as it should, and is more than solid enough for the genre.
In the end, the nostalgia factor alone would have meant that it was good, but The Expendables is more than just the sum of its cast; it’s what everyone who drooled over the cast list, the trailer, and the whole idea of the film, thought it would be and so much more; it’s what cinema was meant to be; a thoroughly enveloping blast of an escapist ride that’ll pull you in, make you laugh, make your jaw drop, and batter every one of your senses, all while leaving you wanting more.
The soundtrack was excellently chosen, and while the plot may be stick thin, summarized in only five words (mercenaries hired to overthrow dictator), and be a total cliché, the old-school nature of The Expendables makes it work brilliantly, and it does what what most modern films fail to do, by giving filmgoers exactly what they want, and then some; big names, big guns, big laughs, and some fucking giant explosions; meaning there isn’t an action fan alive that won’t love this movie.
The Expendables comes highly recommended, as it has to be the best pure action movie released this side of the millennium, and will be opening in U.S. theaters on August 13th, and U.K. cinemas on August 20th.
