‘Expendables’ takes action movies back to ’80s
Sylvester Stallone approaches filmmaking these days much in the same way automakers design cars.
He looks at the past, at what made him great, and tries to recreate that era, with a modern twist.
He has revisited John Rambo and Rocky to surprising success. “Rocky Balboa” (2006) saw Rocky return to his humble roots, running a restaurant and trying to reconnect with his son while attempting a comeback in the ring.
“Rambo” (2008) found the aging soldier trying to avoid trouble on a fishing boat in southeast Asia.
These are two of the most iconic movie characters in the last 30-plus years of movies, and Stallone did a great job of bringing them back to life. Instead of trying to top himself in the same way he did with the previous sequels, he stripped down each character and took them back to their original form.
He’s done the same thing to the modern action movie with “The Expendables.” No high-tech gimmicks, no expensive special effects, just raw action and poor dialogue, just like in the 1980′s. Strung together by the thinnest of plots and some terrible writing, this movie has some of the best action scenes, maybe ever. The last act of the movie is one 40-minute explosion.
Stallone is Barney Ross, an ex-soldier who leads a group of mercenaries available to the highest bidder. They ride choppers, hang out in a tattoo parlor and, well, pick an action movie cliché and they indulge in it.
The group includes Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture and Terry Crewes. (Statham is the only one here who has had any film relevancy in the last 10 years, by the way.) Barney is approached by Bruce Willis, who is apparently a C.I.A. operative of some kind who needs a South American dictator/drug dealer taken out. All hell breaks loose when Stallone, after visiting the country on a recon mission, meets his gorgeous contact and falls in love. At least I think he falls in love. The plot of this movie is really underdeveloped. The stakes are never really set and it’s clear Stallone just wanted to blow some stuff up and show that he can still hang with guys like Statham even at 64 years old.
The above paragraph sounds like I didn’t like this movie. From a script and story standpoint, this is an utter disaster. The villains, one played with scenery chewing bravado by Eric Roberts and the other with no charisma at all by David Zayas from TV’s “Dexter,” really have no story or purpose other than to give our heroes someone to throw knives at and attempt to blow up. The South American drug angle is pretty much ignored. A decent screenwriter would have given us an insight into the bad things these two are up to. Show us the misery and suffering their subjects are experiencing. Give us a reason to want Stallone and company to wreak havoc on them. Sly doesn’t do this.
What he does do, and the reason I love this movie, is stage action as well as anyone directing movies today. The fights are visceral and brutal. While a lot of today’s action directors are busy shaking the camera to the point of nausea at times, Stallone keeps the camera on the action and lets it play out so the audience can see what’s going on. Jet Li and Jason Statham have one fight in particular that is mind-blowingly awesome and will have a hard time being topped any time soon. It’s amazing. Every “actor” in this movie gets his day in the sun. Stallone and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin have a bout that is bone-crunching and, in real life, both men would have died from the punishment they dole out to each other. It’s a ton of fun.
The cast here in great. Stallone looks amazing for 64. Jason Statham and Jet Li are two of the most watchable action heroes in movies and Mickey Rourke, who doesn’t get in on the action, has the best scene of dialogue in the film. By best, I mean ONLY scene of good dialogue in the whole piece. He laments on the affect war has on a man and it’s very well-played and well-written.
As a 33-year-old male who grew up on “Commando,” “Above the Law,” “Cliffhanger” and every other great, cheesy action movie of the last 20 years, “The Expendables” was welcome throwback. It’s worth seeing for the last act alone.
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