The Expendables
Tags: cult

Plot synopsis:
The Expendables—leader Barney Ross, knife specialist Lee Christmas, hand-to-hand combat specialist Yin Yang, heavy-weapons specialist Hale Caesar, demolitions expert Toll Road, the unstable Gunner Jensen, and sniper Billy the Kid, the team's newest recruit and Ross' protégé—are deployed to Nepal to rescue Dr. Zhou, a hostage. They also rescue the captured mercenary Trench, Ross's rival. Yang leaves the group to escort Zhou back to China.
After returning to New Orleans, Billy tells Ross that he intends to retire at the end of the month and live with his girlfriend Sophia. Later, Ross is forced to accept a mission from CIA operative Mr. Church to retrieve an item from a downed airplane in Albania. Church sends technical expert Maggie Chan with the team. In Albania the Expendables retrieve the item, but are then ambushed by international criminal and arms dealer Jean Vilain, his right-hand man Hector and his mercenary group (the Sangs), who have captured Billy. Vilain demands the item in exchange for Billy's life. The team gives up the item, but Vilain roundhouse kicks a knife through Billy's heart and flees with the Sangs by helicopter. Ross recovers a note for Sophia from Billy's body; the team buries their fallen comrade, swearing vengeance on Vilain.
Maggie tells them that the item is a computer, with the location of five tons of refined plutonium abandoned in a mine by the Soviet Union after the Cold War. Vilain intends to retrieve the plutonium and sell it. The Expendables are able to weakly track the computer's signal and follow Vilain, which leads them to Bulgaria where they stay overnight at an abandoned Russian military base. The next morning, the team is ambushed by the Sangs and a tank. After the Expendables run out of ammunition, they are saved by Ross's old friend, Booker, who quickly eliminates both the Sangs and the tank. Before he departs, Booker informs the group of a nearby village whose residents oppose Vilain. Meanwhile, Hector and Vilain dig up the plutonium and begin collecting it.
In the village, the Expendables find several armed female villagers guarding their children from Vilain's forces. The local inhabitants are taken and put to work as slaves in the mine, never returning, and the women ask for the Expendables' help. The Sangs arrive for more villagers, but are ambushed by the Expendables and killed. After locating Vilain and the mine, the team assaults the area with their plane before deliberately crashing into the mine. The team saves the enslaved miners from execution, but Vilain and Hector escape with the plutonium. Vilain remotely detonates explosive charges in the mine; it collapses, trapping the miners and the Expendables.
Church and Trench arrive, freeing the miners and the team, and join the Expendables to pursue Vilain. The group intercepts Vilain and his men at an airport as he prepares to leave by plane. Joined again by Booker, the Expendables, Trench and Church engage the Sangs in battle. Christmas decapitates Hector, while Ross and Vilain fight hand-to-hand. Ross defeats Vilain, stabbing him and avenging Billy.
In the aftermath, Ross is given an old Antonov An-2 biplane by Church; Church, Maggie, Booker and Trench then leave the team. In France, Sophia discovers a box on her doorstep with a large sum of money and Billy's letter. As the Expendables depart in the plane, they propose a final toast to Billy.

Review: Utilization Of A Vivid Background Does Not Help A Scenario Having Flawed Logic.. This watchable melodrama, having a full share of fairly savage moments, avoids being one of Philippine schlockmeister Ciro Santiago's most flagrantly weak efforts, although it is recognized as a bald remake of the Robert Aldrich directed 1967 thick ear, THE DIRTY DOZEN. As with all of Santiago's films, this unexpectedly effective affair is shot in the Philippines, being the third of his efforts having a Vietnam setting, and not intended as a crude shocker, as are the prior pair, while nonetheless offering a great deal of screen time for stuntmen and demolition specialists. The film opens with United States Army Captain Rosello (Anthony Finetti) leading a platoon into an enemy village to destroy a munitions depot. This is explosively accomplished, although many U. S. casualties are a result. Since few return from this adventure, other troops refuse any association with Rosello, who is then reassigned to lead a squad made up of generally felonious scapegraces. Beneath his guidance, the men gradually begin to work as a team, in spite of the cinematically guaranteed mishmash that they are (Hispanic, negroid, bigot, doper, religious fanatic), the lattermost performed by Loren Haynes, who writes and sings the film's closing song. For the miscreant squad's initial mission, they are tasked with capturing a Viet Cong colonel, along with the destruction of a strategically significant bridge. Success with this assignment will sanction Rosello's aspirations to proficiency in leadership. However, it soon becomes clear that the squad is not yet functional as a closely-knit unit, and Rosello decides to take his charges into a local brothel in hopes of improving their general attitude. Unfortunately, while there, they become engaged in a drunken brawl with some Marines, resulting in their winding up in jail, from where they are released specifically in order to tackle their most dangerous duty assignment, involving recapture of the since-freed Viet Cong colonel, while at the same time rescuing several Army nurse hostages captured by the V.C. during as assault upon a U.S. military hospital. Naturally, none of this has any apparent basis in fact. A good deal of battle action is found here, characteristic of any Santiago film, and many players of his stock company are at hand, as virtually all of the cast have appeared in other Santiago movies. Additionally, stereotypes prevail among the characters. Perhaps Santiago's greatest strength as a director, well-constructed build-up sequences, merely lead here to his primary weakness, a failure to develop impact from these episodes. This film is, in sum, unpersuasive hokum from the bottom barrel of imagination. If a viewer will not be interested in seeing a superfluity of gunfights replete with many bullet squibs, and explosions, it would be better to spend one's time elsewhere. However, it should be noted that Santiago has refined his endeavours to the point that this work will garner one's attention throughout its 90 minute length. It can still be found upon a Media Home Entertainment VHS tape having good audio and visual quality, but is not available as a DVD and it is unlikely that it will be released in that format.. If we were to rate this on a scale from one to ten, it would be a five.. Back in 'Nam, Captain Rosello (Finetti) is assigned a rag-tag bunch of misfits to take under his command. Under Rosello's leadership, they become "The Expendables", soldiers specifically meant to take on dirty and extremely dangerous missions. These include capturing a V.C. Colonel (Diaz) and saving nurses that have been taken hostage. Will these men accomplish their difficult missions - and will they be able to get along with each other long enough to survive? Find out today! Man, look at the cast for this one...Stallone, Statham, Dolph, Gary Daniels, the list goes on and on! Wait a minute...you mean in 1988 there was a movie called The Expendables...and it's a CIRIO SANTIAGO movie? Wow, who knew Cirio was so ahead of his time? Well, this Expendables may not have the starpower of the newer one, but it does have Anthony Finetti. So take that. It also has Nick Nicholson in a tiny cameo role and the ever-present Vic Diaz. So this outing can obviously hold its own. Well, maybe not.What we have here is your typical jungle/exploding hut/helicopter/machine gun fire movie. Cirio has made more of these than most other directors, and this does have all the standard clichés, such as the barfight, the religious soldier, and of course the ragtag team. This is a standard-issue movie. It's not great, it's not bad, it just kind of floats somewhere in the middle.The movie has enough little moments to keep it afloat, but it doesn't really distinguish itself in any significant way. It doesn't have a forceful drive and energy moving it forward. Special mention should go to Peter Nelson, the actor who played Sterling. He did a good job and managed to stand out a bit. He obviously couldn't get enough of the jungles of the Philippines so he returned for Cirio's Eye of the Eagle III (1989). Anthony Finetti could have had a long career making movies like this, but it seems he did not. It's a shame, he could have been the next Tony Marsina.If we were to rate this on a scale from one to ten, it would be a five. This is what you might call a "neutral" movie, something that's not one thing or another. Hence, while we can't wholeheartedly recommend it, we shouldn't say to totally avoid it either. Cirio has done both better and worse movies, so The Expendables will have to be something of a midway point in his career.For more action insanity, drop by: www.comeuppancereviews.com