Sylvester Stallone and his misfit band of mercs, having rescued a group of hostages from some Somalian pirates in ruthlessly efficient fashion, take on a new job set up by Bruce Willis’ shady CIA broker. Their mission? To take down a puppet military dictator on a fictitious Latin American island, who is being controlled/manipulated by Eric Roberts in order to make a killing from the island’s cocaine harvest.
*****
The Expendables arrived off the back of some serious anticipation. Sly, Arnie, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Steve Austin, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews , Gary Daniels – the list just seemed to go on and the idea of seeing all of these past and present action heavyweights slugging it out and blowing stuff up sounded like a dream come true. What we have though, is neither a disaster nor a masterpiece, simply a good old-fashioned action flick that provides plenty of entertainment while seeming to fall short of Sly’s aspirations and our collective hopes.
Stallone seems to be a very capable director of action, with fight scenes, chases, gun battles and explosions all being very effectively rendered, but he struggles much more on the script front, failing for the most part to present fully fleshed-out characters, or dialogue with the depth and punch needed for those difficult talky bits between all of the violence. A noteworthy exception is the conversation between Sly and Rourke, where Rourke remembers an occasion on a mission in Bosnia where he turned his back on a woman throwing herself off a bridge. The script captures for an all too brief few minutes the elegiac tone and sense of looking back with regret that, had it been sustained for the film’s full 90 minutes could have resulted in a film that achieved for the action genre what The Wild Bunch did for westerns. Rourke is outstanding in the scene and it is a shame that his duties on Iron Man 2 prevented him from featuring more heavily in the film, as his pain-etched face is what the film often needs as a counterpoint for all of the wisecracking and quick quips.
There is a good, easy rapport between Sly and Statham, but that does not extend to the rest of the Sly’s crew, who remain as stock, two-dimensional characters throughout. When the punching, kicking, shooting and exploding start, they all really come into their own and the last half hour is accordingly great fun, but you are left with a sense that Sly was aiming for something more but could not quite get there. Some of the dialogue is very difficult to catch first time around, making DVD perhaps a more suitable medium for watching the film, but in fact much of the dialogue is unimportant in terms of understanding the plot. There are no great twists or surprises, simply a workable action-film plot that is elevated from average to enjoyable by the collective star power of the cast.
*****
Extras: There is a grand total of one deleted scene on Disc 1, which gives Dolph Lundgren a bit more to say in the opening scene, but is pretty much unnecessary. A gag reel mostly consists of Jason Statham screwing up his lines and Bruce Willis struggling to say “Vilena” (the island on which the film is mostly set) and there is a trailer, a TV spot and a selection of posters. On Disc 2 is a 90 minute long “making of” which follows Sly through scripting, shooting, medical attention, fighting and explosions. Much is made of the punishment his body took during the shoot and the sight of him receiving injections in his ankle and urgent on-set treatment after hobbling away from yet another stunt, induce genuine admiration and sympathy. He doesn’t sit around feeling sorry for himself, preferring instead to press on. The making of doc gives a real insight to how hardworking and energetic Sly is, though it would have been nice to have heard a little more from the other actors involved.
There is a further “making of” on Disc 1, though it is simply 20 minutes of repeated content from the Disc 2 doc. Of greater interest is Sly’s commentary, which helps to resolve at least a couple of niggling concerns from the film. He explains that a second unit shot the fight between Jet Li and Lundgren and that it resulted in a different, over-edited style than he would have gone for, adding that if there’s a sequel he will shoot the fight the way it should have been done. It is a particular frustration in watching the film that two such proficient fighters cannot just be shot going at it properly and in fact that tendancy to over edit extends to a number of the hand to hand scenes. Another admirably candid comment from Sly is that he had a limited budget and limited time and so was not always able to do things the way he wanted, having instead to “make do” on occasion. It is refreshing to hear someone admitting to shortcomings rather than simply spending the whole film gushing about how amazing everyone was.
I had felt during a couple of sequences that Sly was kind of hobbling a bit when he should have been sprinting and it was kind of reassuring to see that he had a good excuse – his ankle was knackered and it was hard to walk, much less run. In the end, shots of Sly looking exhausted, wondering when the rain would lift, shuffling away after a bodyslam from Steve Austin wrecked his back and trying to keep going despite the limitations imposed by his body say far more about the mortality of 80’s action stars than the film itself does, so Sly manages to get his point across after all.
The Expendables is available on DVD and Blu Ray today.
