The Expendables

Directed by Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables follows a team of mercenaries (Stallone’s Barney Ross, Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, Jet Li’s Ying Yang, Terry Crews’ Hale Caesar, and Randy Couture’s Toll Road) as they agree to assassinate a merciless dictator (David Zayas’ General Garza) – with complications ensuing as it becomes increasingly clear that the gang’s survival is anything but a sure thing. Though the film kicks off with an impressively violent pre-credits showdown, The Expendables boasts an opening hour that’s distinctly lacking in the hard edge that one might’ve expected (and hoped for) – with the less-than-brutal atmosphere (ie there’s one curse word in the entire film, for crying out loud!) exacerbated by Stallone’s decidedly laid-back sense of pacing. The watchable yet thoroughly uneven vibe is especially disappointing given the almost incredible roster of performers assembled by Stallone, and there’s little doubt that the film initially doesn’t fare much better than such similarly themed recent endeavors as The Losers and The A-Team (both rated PG-13, incidentally). However, the viewer’s patience is rewarded (and then some) once the movie segues into its men-on-a-mission third act – as Stallone has infused this stretch with precisely the sort of over-the-top and viscerally brutal glee that’s so glaringly absent from the rest of the proceedings. The enjoyably ruthless nature of The Expendables‘ third act effectively compensates for the lifelessness of all that precedes it, with the end result an admittedly erratic yet sporadically thrilling throwback to the unabashedly violent action flicks of the 1980s.

*** out of ****