The Expendables

Do you like action? Then go see this film. Do you like action with a well thought-out plot and developed characters? Then maybe The Expendables isn’t quite the film for you. Sylvester Stallone is experiencing a bit of a late-career renaissance, with both Rocky Balboa (2006) and Rambo (2008) proving that he’s still a capable action man and a solid director. But while those films were about trying to provide closure on characters dear to his heart, The Expendables is all about re-living his past. It’s an 80’s action flick, re-jigged to remind modern audiences what action can be. Shaky-cam and over-stylised kung fu have more or less ruined action films of late. Very few directors have the confidence or the ability to let a fight sequence play out within the frame. More often than not they emulate the Michael Bay/Paul Greengrass school of camera wankery that confuses the geography of the fight and substitutes rapid-fire editing for interesting shot composition. Sure it seems exciting and punchy, but it’s smoke and mirrors. Sam Peckinpah might have had a quick cutting rhythm, but what was inside the frame was just as interesting as how he assembled those shots together. Stallone understands this, so while the editing is fast, the action is never confusing and what goes on inside the frame is, frankly, some of the best fighting you’ve seen in quite a while.

But there is a story here, and it isn’t the main plot. It’s about a bunch of men who do terrible things, and have to think about what that’s doing to them. The story of Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) is a side bar that’s really interesting. He’s gotten so bored of killing that he comes up with more and more inventive ways to do it. He’s so far gone that he’s a hazard to the team, so they dump him. He turns on them, and when asked why, simply says it’s a “lover’s quarrel”. And it really is. It’s a bunch of men so emotionally stunted that they can’t express their love for each other except through abuse. And it’s interesting to watch, because Stallone is deliberately playing with the machismo and camaraderie. He’s got something to say, small though it may be, within a film that could easily have been one giant explosion after another.

Interesting as that is, really, the main fun here is that The Expendables is a line-up of some of the greatest action stars of now and yesterday coming together to blow up a lot of stuff. Things blow up, people blow up, get sliced up, beat up, shot up… You get the idea. It’s just going for it, and it’s pretty much non-stop. It even has Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cameo, which is just there for the fun of it. (He’s not very good, truth be told, but it’s nice to see him all the same.) If you like good action cinema, this is pretty awesome BDF (Big Dumb Fun).

Want more about this film?

Want something different?