 Tagline: Every movie has a hero. This one has them all. Sylvester Stallone stars as Barney Ross, leader of The Expendables, a tight-knit team of skilled combat vets turned mercenaries. Hired by a powerful covert operator, the team jets off to a small South American country to overthrow a ruthless dictator. Once there, they find themselves caught in a deadly web of deceit and betrayal. Using every weapon at their disposal, they set out to save the innocent and punish the guilty in this blistering action-packed thriller. Storyline: Barney Ross leads the "Expendables", a band of highly skilled mercenaries including knife enthusiast Lee Christmas, martial arts expert Yin Yang, heavy weapons specialist Hale Caesar, demolitionist Toll Road and loose-cannon sniper Gunner Jensen. When the group is commissioned by the mysterious Mr. Church to assassinate the merciless dictator of a small South American island, Barney and Lee head to the remote locale to scout out their opposition. Once there, they meet with local rebel Sandra and discover the true nature of the conflict engulfing the city. When they escape the island and Sandra stays behind, Ross must choose to either walk away and save his own life - or attempt a suicidal rescue mission that might just save his soul. Written by The Massie Twins Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, November 16, 2010 -- What's an aging action star to do? Once the muscles begin to go slack and the paunch begins to creep, suddenly appearing shirtless and wreaking havoc on any number of evildoers doesn't seem like such a wise career move. And truth be told, most action stars are not exactly heavyweights in the acting arena, so cherché character parts are typically not in order, either. And so that doesn't leave a lot of options open other than lowbrow comedy and, ultimately, self-parody. And so you have to at least give Sylvester Stallone some props for having the cojones to go all out and make a slam bang action film like The Expendables, a largely brainless effort (in only the best way) that delivers a slew of good to excellent action sequences while never even trying to poke beneath the heavily botoxed surface of any of its stars. President Johnson evidently once joked about his future successor Gerald Ford that the only unelected President in history had "played football without a helmet once too often." One can only imagine what head trauma the various stars of The Expendables have undergone in their long and varied careers, and so expecting a finely wrought drama full of nuanced human emotion would be an exercise in futility. The Expendables knows what it wants to be, gets there with little fuss or bother, and if there's little in the way of "character arcs" or "plotline," does it really make any difference when you have a coterie of iconic stars blasting the hell out of Somali pirates and South American despots? Barney Ross (Stallone) is an aging mercenary who belongs to an exclusive boys' club where the guys ride tricked out hogs, get tattoos and/or advice from their creepy-cool mentor, Tool (Mickey Rourke), and occasionally fly off to foreign lands to maim and kill people. What's not to love? Rourke's character's name is the viewer's first clue that actual character will be shorthanded with cutesy soubriquets, and so the gang is made up of guys with names like Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), Toll Road (Randy Couture) and Gunner (Dolph Lundgren). This motley crew is an amalgamation of different fighting styles, including Yang's martial arts expertise and Christmas' handy way with blades. The film opens with a set piece where several hostages are freed from Somali pirates by this rogue group of good guys. Does it even need mentioning that there's nary a bad guy left standing by the end of the sequence? Though some real drama is developed (not) with the nascent beginnings of a subplot wherein Barney finds he can no longer trust Gunner. Considering Stallone and Lundgren's previous bout as nemeses in Rocky IV, is there any doubt as to where this plot point is going? The main thrust of the movie takes place in the tropical non-paradise of Vilena, a fetid little country of squalor and CIA infiltrated drug trade, presided over by its native General (David Zayas, Dexter) and his Black Ops handler, Munroe (Eric Roberts). Barney and gang are hired by a mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis in an unbilled cameo) to take out the General, but they soon figure out after a disastrous initial incursion that Munroe is the real bad guy. Along the way, Stallone falls for the General's daughter, Sandra (Giselle Itié), leaving her behind when he escapes the first debacle, but realizing, after a charming monologue about suicide with Tool, that the sanctity of his soul depends on his return to save the girl. Yes, this is that by the numbers. This is a film where scintillating dialogue consists of Willis turning to Stallone and the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger (in an even briefer cameo than Willis'), and asking, "What, are you guys going to suck each other's dicks?" Who says the art of screenwriting is dead? There's nothing even remotely surprising about anything in The Expendables, but that doesn't mean the film doesn't come through with flying colors in the extremely limited realm of its ostensible ambitions. This is brain dead entertainment, and it fulfills that mission about as artfully as could be expected. Stallone has proven himself repeatedly as a very cogent director of action sequences, and when he isn't indulging in modern tricks of the trade like "shaky cams," he stages a number of really effective moments throughout the film. The fight scenes are of course wonderfully cartoonish, though some prospective audience members looking at this cast list might be expecting more bone crunching than actually occurs. Stallone offers instead briefer moments of insane gun battle, lots of big explosions, one very well executed car chase, and an over the top final sequence that is virtually 15 minutes of nonstop mayhem, including buildings blowing up, people catching fire, and bazookas blowing baddies to smithereens. Just when you think the deafening onslaught is dying down, Stallone amps it back up again, and this final tour de force (literally) will leave most people breathless, if only for its relentless pace and nonstop LFE. While the surfeit of botox in at least a few of these actors deprives the performances from having any nuances like, you know, facial expressions, there's a testosterone-fueled camaraderie amongst these guys that rings true, even when they're saddled with some of the most patently ridiculous dialogue ever shoehorned into an action feature (and that's saying a lot). Stallone and Statham work well off of each other, never really getting to Odd Couple heights which are only kind of hinted at. The supporting cast does well in roles which are largely ciphers tied to their cutesy nicknames. Li especially is wasted, both in acting and, perhaps more surprisingly, fight sequences. He does get one big showdown with Lundgren, but it's shot in such a dank and dark setting that his spectacular fight moves are hard to see. The main acting gravitas here, if it can be called that in such a spectacularly silly film as The Expendables, is Mickey Rourke. His whiskey- and nicotine-soaked voice may not have anything very meaningful to say, despite co-scenarists Stallone and Dave Callaham's futile and largely ridiculous attempts to invest some soul searching into the film, but Rourke's mere presence speaks volumes and he gives this film what little—and I do mean little—emotional impact it manages to eke about between things that go boom. The Expendables traded its considerable star power for pretty impressive box office worldwide, and Stallone is already making noise about a sequel. He's trying to enlist several action stars who either declined to be in this first outing, or were unavailable, people like Jean-Claude Van Damme. If this franchise itself never rises above popcorn fare—and really that's not such a bad thing—it at least might provide some steady employment for actors who saw their careers dissipate with the onslaught of middle aged spread. If you come to The Expendables expecting Eugene O'Neill, you've been playing too much football without a helmet. This film is an unapologetic testosterone-fest, and as such it provides plenty of explosions, gunfights, hand to hand combat but perhaps surprisingly few nubile young women. Oh, well, you can't have everything. The cast here is game and is obviously in on the joke. If the film tries too hard to make it all have "meaning," thankfully it's not too long before something else blows up. This Blu-ray offers a substantial supplementary package, great visuals and a truly astounding sound mix and, despite the film's flaws, comes Recommended. Cast Notes: Sylvester Stallone (Barney Ross), Jason Statham (Lee Christmas), Jet Li (Ying Yang), Dolph Lundgren (Gunner Jensen), Eric Roberts (James Munroe), Randy Couture (Toll Road), Steve Austin (Paine), David Zayas (General Garza), Giselle Itié (Sandra), Charisma Carpenter (Lacy), Gary Daniels (The Brit), Terry Crews (Hale Caesar), Mickey Rourke (Tool), Amin Joseph (Pirate Leader), Senyo Amoaku (Tall Pirate). IMDb Rating (12/24/10): 6.8/10 from 62,465 users IMDb Rating (10/15/10): 7.0/10 from 49,165 users
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