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Limacher Low Down: The Expendables is just a throw back to the Action Genre of the 80’s and 90’s where violence was utilized just for the sake of violence. The movie has a cast of THOUSANDS, well not really, but action stars galore light up the screen. The viewer definitely gets their bang for the buck in this one, and you won’t leave saying “I thought there would be more explosions and violence and shit!”
The Expendables is a group of guys who are hired to do mercenary work for those who can afford to pay for their services. The movie opens showcasing what the group, led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), does best, “Peace Negotiations”. The audience quickly learns there is a friendly rivalry of who can do the most damage between Ross and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham). Everything is fun and games, literally, as the team members try to out-kill and out-destroy each other. But one guy, a “rogue” Expendable doesn’t always follow Ross’ orders, enter Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) who by taking action into his own hands gets into a spat with Ying Yang (Jet Li). Ross puts an end to the situation and alerts everyone that this behavior is not tolerated in the group.
Turns out Ross gets his mission intel from his tattoo artist, Tool (Mickey Rourke) who was once an Expendable himself. Tool lets Ross know about a dangerous mission, and Ross and Christmas do some recon work. They soon discover there is a former CIA Agent, James Munroe (Eric Roberts), who has bought his way into the small island for his own personal use – manipulating a local general to brutally control the local populace. General Garza (David Zayas) loves only two things, money and his family, the rest are, well, expendable!
The recon work leads Ross and Christmas to initally shy away from the mission, hard to spend money when you are dead! But, their contact, Sandra (Giselle Itie) gets into Ross’ head.
This part is the real drama of the movie – Ross decides to go it alone because it was time to live or die. The others decide it is all in their best interest to join the mission as well, and not miss out on the fun. This is where the movie takes off and the audience knows that the shit is FINALLY going to hit the fan!
The mission itself is worth the price of admission. The explosions, the gunfire, the blood just take over the screen and the fun has truly begun. The action more than makes up for the acting, which is good cause the acting wasn’t that great. The cameos are given away in the previews, but the lines that are shot between the 3 are hilarious. There is some comedy in the movie, although some of it wasn’t supposed to be funny. I say if you miss action movies that just explode the screen with high body counts and explosions then RUN to see the Expendables!
