The Expendables... Where to begin:
As the poster shows, the cast of this film is enough to turn even the hardened action fan to jelly. And as a result, there was a huge risk of it being nothing but 2 hours of guns and explosions. And although I have never seen so many flying bullets in one film, I have to say; it worked.
Written by Stallone himself, the plot allows each character to have his own moment of glory (resulting in a huge array of explosions and fire fights) which produces a hugely over played 'stormtrooper effect' (trained villains are awful shots and are all killed with minimal effort from the good guys (such as imperial stormtroopers)).
---SPOILER BEGINS HERE---
The plot is centered around a small group of hardy bikers led by Barney Ross (Stallone) that are hired guns in their spare time. When a CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) defects and sets up a multi-billion dollar drug trafficking operation in South America, they are called to deal with it (if the CIA took out one of their own it would make bad press, and if the mercs die no-one cares, thus 'expendables'). Church (Willis) acts a front to the CIA and attempts to hire the expendables, when Ross initially refuses, Church plays his trump card, which is to bring in trench (Schwarzenegger) after a short but hilarious exchange between the The plot becomes deeper and it turns out that Munroe is actually the puppet master behind a South American dictatorship, therefore having complete control over the countries armed forces.
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| A small dispute amidst the team |
After a 'subtle' recon mission to the island, Barney and Lee (Statham) come across a young woman who turns out to be the dictators daughter, Ross attempts to convince her to leave but she refuses to leave her homeland stating that one day it will be free. She hates her fathers oppression of the people and openly defies the regime before being captured and tortured. Barney and Lee then make an explosion exit filled involving planes, guns, fuel tanks and half the military that alerts Munroe to the fact he is a target. Ross vows to return and free the island (more for the sake of the girl).
Later Ross returns with the rest of the gang and make a quiet entrance which is succeeded by laying explosive charges upon literally every surface which results in the destruction of the entire imperial palace. During the ensuing chaos each cast member gets their own moment of glory in a series of insanely brutal fight scenes. Finally, Ross tracks down Munroe to find he has taken the girl as a hostage; after a short standoff in which Ross is shot in the shoulder, Munroe is shot 3 times in the chest at the same time as being impaled from behind by Lee. The expendables then leave in time for the rest of the place to go up in flames and everyone lives happily ever after.
---SPOLIER ENDS HERE---
It makes pretty intense viewing and may be over done in places, the point is that it was meant to be action packed and in that respect it did not disappoint.
The film received mixed reviews by critics, some complementing it and others slating it's 'lack of imagination'. However, the point that the critics are missing is simply that the whole point of this film was to bring all of 'action kings' together and face them off and the film achieved this flawlessly. Some films are designed for deep meanings (Inception/Avatar) whereas other are purely meant to be an entertaining few hours that can simply be watched for the sake of being watched, The Expendables is one of the latter and in my opinion there are not enough of these films around anymore.
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