Sylvester Stallone directs and stars in The Expendables, a 2010 action film built around a roster of genre veterans. The film runs 103 minutes, carries the tagline “Choose your weapon,” and grossed $274 million. It scored 4.5 out of 10 (Metacritic 45/100). That gap between money and merit is the whole story.
Trailer, via Lionsgate Movies.
Barney Ross and the Gulf of Aden
The film opens with a team of mercenaries based in New Orleans, deployed to the Gulf of Aden to rescue hostages from Somali pirates. Stallone plays leader Barney Ross. Jason Statham is blade specialist Lee Christmas, Jet Li is martial artist Yin Yang, Dolph Lundgren is chemical engineer Gunner Jensen, Terry Crews is weapons specialist Hale Caesar, and Randy Couture is demolitions expert Toll Road.
Gunner starts a firefight that kills pirates. He tries to hang one, and Yang stops him. Barney discharges him. That is the film’s one real character beat, and it lands early.
General Garza and the Island of Vilena
Barney and rival Trench Mauser, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in an uncredited cameo, visit Bruce Willis’s Mr. Church for a contract. The job: overthrow General Garza, played by David Zayas, on Vilena, an island in the Gulf of Mexico. Barney and Christmas fly there to scout and meet their contact Sandra, played by Giselle Itié.
They are discovered. Ex-CIA officer James Munroe, played by Eric Roberts, is keeping Garza in power as a figurehead for his own profiteering. Sandra is Garza’s daughter. Barney aborts the mission. Sandra refuses to leave.
Mickey Rourke’s Tool and the CIA Twist
Barney visits his friend Tool, a tattoo expert played by Mickey Rourke. The team learns Church is a CIA operative. The real target is Munroe, who went rogue and joined Garza to keep drug money meant for the CIA. The agency cannot kill one of its own directly because of bad publicity.
A Cast That Almost Was
The casting history is more interesting than the film. Jean-Claude Van Damme turned down a role, saying there was no substance or development to the character. Wesley Snipes turned down Hale Caesar because of tax issues and a court bar on leaving the United States. Forest Whitaker was rewritten in, then replaced by 50 Cent, then by Crews.
Steven Seagal refused a cameo over negative experiences with producer Avi Lerner. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Ben Kingsley and Ray Liotta were all considered for Munroe before Roberts got it.
What the Money Bought
The Expendables pays tribute to late-1980s and early-1990s blockbuster action. It gets the faces right and almost nothing else. The action sequences drew some praise. But a tribute needs more than a roster.
- Release date: August 13, 2010
- Distributor: Lionsgate
- Runtime: 103 minutes
- Gross: $274 million
- Score: 4.5/10 (Metacritic 45/100)
| Installment | Year |
|---|---|
| The Expendables | 2010 |
| The Expendables 2 | 2012 |
| The Expendables 3 | 2014 |
| Expend4bles | 2023 |
Three sequels followed. The original still holds up as a curiosity more than a film, a document of who said yes and who said no. The cast is the point, and the cast is what you remember.
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