MINE'S BIGGER THAN YOURS: a review of "The Expendables"

"THE EXPENDABLES"

Story by David Callaham

Screenplay Written by David Callaham and Sylvester Stallone

Directed by Sylvester Stallone

*** 1/2 (three and a half stars)

Sylvester Stallone’s two-fisted, twelve gauged mercenary epic “The Expendables” is not what I would consider to be a “good” movie. But, good Lord, it is a damn entertaining one. More entertaining than it has any right to be! "The Expendables" is filled past the proverbial brim with massive helpings of bullets, explosions, hammy tough guy dialogue so salty it could cause even the mightiest man to choke and so much testosterone on display one would need a sack of raw meat as currency for the ticket or video rental price. Seemingly conceived to simply bring forth the roughest, toughest muscle bound heroes from the ’80s back into the fold to combine their forces with more recent action stars, “The Expendables” works overtime to ensure that no one is disappointed with the results. And from the get-go, Stallone delivers again and again and again, leaving me in a state of giddy delight despite myself and any movie-going quality criteria I tend to possess.

Recently, I reviewed Director Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable,” a furiously paced action thriller that I found to be unfortunately forgettable due to the well-produced and orchestrated sound and fury on screen being used at the expense of an empty story, flat characters and hollow center. Even though the storyline of “The Expendables” is as paper thin as “Unstoppable,” the film contains more than enough character, energy and big brass balls of swagger to satisfy the hungriest fans of male driven mayhem.

Stallone stars as Barney Ross, the leader of a rag tag band of mercenaries including knife expert Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial arts master Yin Yang (Jet Li), the cauliflower eared demolitions kingpin Toll Road (Randy Couture), firearms Hale Caeser (Terry Crews), and the junkie live wire Gunner (Dolph Lundgren). The team is recruited by the mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to bring down the insidious dictator General Garza (David Zayas) and Ex-CIA operative James Munroe (a perfectly slimy Eric Roberts) who jointly control a lucrative drug operation on the island of Vilena, a fictional location set near South America. Yes, there is a damsel that needs saving (horribly played by Gisele Itie), grievances to be dealt with and more outrageous carnage than you could ever hope to see in a film that flies by in under two hours.

Like “Unstoppable,” that is the entire plot and all you need for a movie like this. “The Expendables” is not only aggressively fast and swiftly brutal, it gets the job done without any superfluous material. However, unlike “Unstoppable,” which attempts to raise its pedigree with a bigger budget and bigger stars including Oscar winner Denzel Washington, “The Expendables” is down and dirty and unapologetically so. Somehow, its scuzziness works to its advantage despite some graphic violence here and there that is needlessly overdone and a disturbingly tasteless water-boarding scene involving that aforementioned damsel in distress. It was strange to feel so oddly exhilarated during a film that is more than a little stupid but almost…almost… knowingly so. I literally sat of the edge of my seat while I simultaneously howled with laughter.

As I think about some of the biggest action films of the 1980’s, I remember vividly how much I enjoyed the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger over Sylvester Stallone’s. Schwarzenegger, while exceedingly capable of delivering the action movie goods, also didn’t take himself terribly seriously. This crucial trait showed that he was always in on the joke of how ridiculous each violent scenario and acts of vengeance fueled deliverance actually were. Yet to me, Stallone always struck me as one who essentially believed in his own acts of cinematic heroism or brutality. The films took themselves way too seriously and were frustratingly humorless, making them almost partisan flights of fantasy that never sat well.

If you take a moment to think back, please compare Schwarzenegger’s “Commando” (1985) to Stallone’s “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (1985) and think about which film actually more fun. For me, it was “Commando” hands down! The comedy (partially supplied by the wonderful Rae Dawn Chong) and the violence of that film worked in beautiful tandem making for an experience I will still tend to watch happily whenever I stumble across it on cable. And it was a quality sorely missing from Stallone’s increasingly nasty films from that period.

“The Expendables” seems to begin like a typical Stallone movie of old while it increasingly becomes the Schwarzenegger cartoon. It is a hybrid that somehow works even when its own undisciplined messiness wants to pull it apart. To his credit, Stallone seems to be loosening up a bit, especially during an early scene featuring himself, Willis and Schwarzenegger playfully volleying a series of manly put downs at each other’s expense. That is one terrific scene that completely plays off of their respective film histories and our knowledge of them. A fight scene between Stallone and Lundgren is obviously meant to recall their battles in “Rocky IV” (1986). Another fight scene between Stallone and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is nothing less than a mano-a-mano clash of the titans designed to make fans salivate for more.

Throughout “The Expendables,” Sylvester Stallone is densely stoic and steadfast while Jason Statham is the charismatically hotheaded strong arm. Roberts and Lundgren are also quite effective in their respectively villainous turns. And I must give special mention to Mickey Rourke who makes good usage of his few scenes as an ex-Expendable, tattoo artist and …ahem…moral conscience of the group. Unfortunately, with so many muscles to squeeze into the frame, someone will undoubtedly receive short shrift. Sadly, it is Jet Li who really does not have that much to do. Throughout his fight scenes, which should show the graceful power of his martial arts skills, the cinematography and editing are so poor and so badly filmed that not only is the story of the fight unreadable, it is difficult to even know if Li was even present during the filming.

The myriad of action sequences in “The Expendables” are shamelessly problematic. They are sloppily and hysterically chaotic, implausible and screamingly confounding. One sudden car chase occur and in addition to no sign of law enforcement anywhere at any point, or even spotting any other cars that aren’t related to the ones involved with the chase, you really have no sense of how many cars are involved in the first place. Hand to hand fight scenes are all filtered through the ever moving shaky cam and ADD editing to a degree that you would swear the camera operators are being pummeled about and your only guide is the bombastic music score and bone crunching sound effects.

However, I have to say that the climax of “The Expendable” alone makes this film worth watching. As the mercenaries place a seemingly endless amount of explosive charges throughout a gargantuan compound, I wondered how they even carried all of this equipment from the plane to the island. Did they really need to place charges on every single pillar? This is also the type of movie where the heroes never miss their targets, no matter how many or how far away while the villains always do. Adversaries pop up like dandelions to no conclusion. Just at the point when I verbally squawked out loud that these characters can never have enough bullets, Stallone shockingly utters, “I’m out.” And then, it’s time to bring out the knives, grenades, bare knuckles and anything else that can potentially be utilized as a lethal weapon. The immense body count has no end in sight and no one can possibly be shot enough.

Beyond all of the cataclysm, “The Expendables” is a veritable feast of men for men about men and in honor of men and their excessive manliness. It is a nearly two hour pissing contest or better yet, a penis size measurement competition. For so many scenes, and in so many ways, through action, dialogue or mean stare downs, these characters could have just dispensed with the weaponry and had all of the men drop their pants, stand in a circle while holding rulers against themselves, allowing the audience to listen in on the conversation and wait for the results.

Through some awkward “Tarantino-esque” snatches of dialogue, we learn a little bit about the hearts of these men of action. Stallone and Rourke worry about their disintegrating souls due to the callousness of their lives. Statham is filled with heartbreak over a failed relationship but will still race to her aid when he discovers that she has been abused. Rourke also announces at one point that while he would never die for a woman, he longs to “die with a woman.” So they aren’t all that bad, I guess. They may be psychopaths but they are sensitive psychopaths.

For a movie like “The Expendables,” that’s what you want. Heroes you can easily root for set to the grinding and unforgiving beat of explosions and shootouts. When the team rides off into the night on motorcycles set to Thin Lizzy’s classic “The Boys Are Back In Town” just at the outset of the film's ending credits, I could not help myself for enjoying this crazy, manic movie as much as I did.

And if the inevitable sequel comes to pass, I just may have to make a trip to the local butcher shop to claim the correct currency to use for my ticket price.