A BLAST from the PAST!!!

Rating: 9/10 (13 August 2010)

Although it doesn't qualify as the high-minded, movie massacre that "Rambo IV" was, writer & director Sylvester Stallone's ballistic, high-octane, adrenalin-laced actioneer about mercenaries with hearts of gold delivers its thrills and chills like grenades in your face. A gnarly-looking Stallone assembles an ultra-elite group of combat veterans known as "The Expendables." This rugged quintet of mercenaries renovates a South American dictator's palace and wipes out his entire army. This enormously entertaining but thoroughly preposterous tough-guy tale boasts a constellation of legendary B-picture action stars. Clearly, Stallone still wields enough clout to attract Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Dolph Lungren, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture, not to mention Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger in cameos, to appear in his movie. Lensed on location in Brazil, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, this brawny but unbelievable, R-rated shoot'em up plays like "The Big Chill" of action movies. Life in "The Expendables" is cheap. Bodies topple like raindrops in a storm of gunfire. Bullets splatter heads and atomize body parts. This cynical, hard-boiled thriller bristles with larger-than-life firefights, fistfights, and knife fights. Predictably, sentimentality ennobles our heroes. They behave like the whore with a heart of gold who gives it up for nothing. Far from being cold, heartless automatons, our bulletproof protagonists win both our sympathy and admiration. They live an unwritten code and banish those who abuse it. Looking as fit as he ever, Stallone sports a Van Dyke and lots of tattoos. Not only does Stallone act as the ringleader for these motley mercenaries, but he also wrote the screenplay as well as orchestrated the action sequences.
"The Expendables" opens at night in the Gulf of Aiden near Somalia as Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone of "Rocky Balboa") leads his elite team of mercenaries to ransom hostages from a ship hijacked by ruthless pirates. The pirate leader (Amin Joseph of "The Mist") isn't satisfied with the $3-million ransom payment that our heroes deposit at his feet. Instead, he complains that the company that employs the hostages has taken far too much time to pay him off. Now, as our eponymous gunmen sight him in with their infrared laser scopes, he demands $5-million. Our heroes quibble about who shoots whom and then Gunnar (Dolph Lungren of "Rocky 4") jump-starts the action and obliterates the leader with his grenade launcher. Meanwhile, our heroes wipe out the pirates to the last man without harming the hostages. Lee Christmas (Jason Statham of the "Transporter" franchise), Yin Yang (Jet Li of "Unleashed"), Hale Caesar (Terry Crews of "Gamer"), and Toll Road (mixed martial artist Randy Couture of "Redbelt") watch in horror as Gunnar tries to hang a pirate. Yang deploys his steel-tipped boots to discourage Gunnar, and Barney plunges his automatic pistol into the nape of Gunnar's neck. Since Gunnar has broken their code, "The Expendables" kick him off the squad. Gunnar has acquired a meth habit that puts him at odds with our heroes.
After they get back home, Barney hears about an offer from an anonymous man, Mr. Church (Bruce Willis of "Cop Out"), who wants to meet him at a church. Barney suspects the man is a C.I.A. agent. Mr. Church invites one of Barney's oldest competitors, Trench (Arnold Schwarzenegger of "Predator"), to listen to his offer. Church wants to topple a ruthless dictator on the South American island of Vilena. Naturally, Vilena is a fictional South American country. Anyway, he wants the man behind the dictator, James Munroe (Eric Roberts of "The Specialist"), rubbed out with extreme prejudice. Munroe and General Garza (David Zayas of "Bring out the Dead") have been harvesting illegal narcotics since they toppled the previous head of state. Ironically, the person who opposes Garza with a passion, Sandra (Hispanic actress Giselle Itié), is his daughter. She serves as an escort for Barney and Lee when they arrive to reconnoiter the island. Barney and Lee fly into Vilena in a battered looking amphibious plane. They pose as wildlife conservation experts but they aren't around long before Garza's soldiers take an interest in their curiosity. Our heroes have to shoot their way off the island. Barney wants to take Sandra with them, but she refuses to leave.
Later, Barney explains to his team that the operation is a C.I.A. set-up that will probably result in their deaths because the agency cannot be trusted to punish its own. Barney recommends that they turn down the offer. Nevertheless, Barney changes his mind after he thinks about Sandra and her decision to remain in the most miserable place in the world. One of Barney's former mercenary pals, Tool (Mickey Rourke of "Iron Man 2"), reminisces about an episode in Bosnia when he failed to save an innocent woman. He believes if he could have saved her life, he might have saved part of his own soul. Barney is so moved by Tool's memory as well as the memory of the defiant Sandra that he decides to fly back into an impossible situation and save her. Although Gunnar is no longer with them, the Expendables volunteer to the last man to join Barney. Instead of doing the impossible for a $5-million pay check, Barney and his men do it for nothing. Meanwhile, Munroe has Sandra arrested and tortured so that he can learn the identities of the men who invaded his island paradise. Our heroes return and all hell breaks loose, with blood and body parts flying like confetti.
No, "The Expendables" isn't cute, clever, or particularly literate. The dialogue shoves the plot forward without sounding like bumper sticker philosophy. The one line that really sticks out is uttered by Stallone's character when Trench turns down the mission and heads for the front door. "What's his problem," Church asks. "He wants to be president," Barney scoffs. They don't have the usual planning scenes with maps and miniatures of the location. Nevertheless, this supercharged macho melodrama will rattle your cage like a blast from the past!