The Expendables

The Expendables 
Directed By: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Eric Roberts, Steve Austin & Gary Daniels.

Stallone is back and he’s not alone!!
Stallone stars as Barney Ross, The leader of a group mercenaries known as The Expendables.
The Expendables are hired by a C.I.A. operative to overthrow a dictator and a rogue C.I.A agent on a small island called Vilena.
The movie opens with a group of Somalian pirates holding hostages on a cargo ship and demanding ransom money, or else they will start killing the hostages.
Just as the lead pirate raises his machete to a hostage. BOOOF!! A duffel bag of money hits the ground and we see The Expendables on the higher ground with weapons pointed at the pirates. Barney (Stallone) grunts “there’s your money, now let the hostages go”!
Naturally being an action movie and with it being our first introduction to The Expendables, the pirates demand more money. Which leads to the crazy loose canon Gunnar (Lundgren) completely blowing the lead pirate in half with a grenade launcher.
The Expendables shoot out the lights, take out some of the pirates. and throw a couple of smoke grenades. They quickly rappel down, as the smoke clears were faced with a standoff.
As comic timing would have it…..we hear a distinct vibrating sound. Barney turns around to Christmas (Statham) who replies with “i’m getting a text” ..it sounds alot better in his London accent.
Christmas would be Barney’s right hand man. Second in command. He is ex SAS and an expert with knives and close quarters combat.
Back to where we were….Barney and Christmas then bicker between themselves about what way would be best to task the pirates out. Barney’s all for bullets and Christmas is for blades. As Barney puts it “bullets go faster then blades”. Within a blink of an eye bullets burst and blades fly!! No casualties and a whole load of dead pirates!!
As the team holster there weapons….we see Gunnar hanging a pirate. Which Barney and the team don’t agree with. After Gunnar refuses to back off we are treated to a brief fight between Gunnar and Yang (Li), Gunnar gains the upper hand but it’s quickly put to a halt by Barney.
Our opening is damn awesome!! Your left with your jaw open. It’s great to see these action stars altogether. I love the way Dolph Lundgren portrays these crazy characters. He is twice as crazy as the characters Andrew Scott who he plays in the Universal Soldier Franchise.
The rest of the cast hold up solid and each and everyone of them have their own moments throughout the movie. The other two members of the team who I didn’t mention are Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) who is a huge heavy weapons expert and we have demolitions expert Toll Road (Ex UFC champ Randy Couture) and last but not least is the man who handles all the Expendables assignments. He is named Tool (Mickey Rourke) who has retired from combat and just gets missions for the team, he also has a side hobby of picking up women….drinking and painting.

After the opening hostage rescue Barney cuts Gunnar from the team. As we learn Gunnar uses drugs and isn’t reliable anymore.
Tool informs Barney he has some work if he is interested. Two jobs are a walk in the park and one is to hell and back.
Being the badasses they are…..they accept the to hell and back option.
Barney has to go to a church to meet a contact for details about the mission. We are introduced to a C.I.A. Agent who just goes by the name ‘Church’ (played by Bruce Willis in a cameo role). But before he gives the briefing he tells Barney they are waiting on another guy….. who then happens to walk into the church…Trent Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cameo role) walks in puffing on a cigar.
This scene to me was so iconic when I watched this movie. How badass was it to have Rambo….The Terminator and John McClane in the same room and same movie and the banter between them is really cool. It’s just a dick measuring contest, fueling from there rivalry back in the 80’s. Definitely makes ya chuckle and smirk a good bit.
Once all the intel has been given and Barney accepts the job, he and Christmas travel to the island of Vilena to do some recon on a Dictator General (David Zayas) and a Rogue C.I.A. agent named Munroe (Eric Roberts). They meet a contact called Sandra (Giselle itie) who shows the team how the island is under strict military rule, and that Munroe and his two henchman Paine (Steve Austin) and The Brit (Gary Daniels).
After seeing what the island is like Barney begins to re-think accepting the job as it is a suicide mission. As Barney is telling Sandra to leave the island the local army turn up and we are treated to an awesome fight scene where Barney and Christmas take on the platoon. Naturally the two kick everyone’s ass and manage to get out. Sandra refuses to leave with them and stays.
After alot of soul searching and a heart to heart with Tool (Mickey Rourke delivers a moving emotional story) Barney decides to head back to the island alone to rescue Sandra. He tells the team he is going and they don’t have to, As it’s something he has to do.
The team aren’t going to let there fearless leader have all the fun so the embark on the final confrontation.
With a story that is wrote by Stallone…then directed by Stallone and having him star…there is no doubt it’s going to be good. He knows how to make an action movie.
The cast he assembled was amazing, it’s a dream team of action stars old and new.
Alot of people complained about the fight scenes and action scenes but I see nothing wrong with them. It satisfied my needs for an action movie. I exceptionally love the whole tunnel fight/shootout at the end. Brutal fights followed by a shootout. It was an adrenaline ride. Stallone at the age of 60 proved nothing can slow you down, heck he even had to get a metal plate inserted in his back after a fight scene with Steve Austin.
Overall this is my own personal fave action movie. So for me it’s 5/
P.s. For people that have seen I did leave out the kinda side story twist involving a character just incase we have some new blood reading this lol.

Reviewed by Jeff Turner