THE EXPENDABLES review; an homoerotic ode to all things macho
rating: 1
"Take it off!" bellow Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke, pleading with Jason Statham to remove his shirt. Earlier, in the same scene, Rourke tells a topless Stallone he has a body of steel. Why dont we both just stop jerking off? Bruce Willis suggests to Stallone a few scenes later before testosterone levels reach their peak as Arnold Schwarzenegger enters the room and begins eyeing up his one-time rival. They trade flirtatious manly banter for a few minutes before Willis takes exception, saying you guys arent going to start sucking each others dicks are you? Welcome to The Expendables, a faintly homoerotic ode to all things macho and a poignant elegy to the 80s action picture: a time when a man was measured by the size of his biceps and where well, as Rourke asks one girlfriend, whats your name again sweetheart? The film, directed and co-written by Rocky Balboa himself, goes on in this vein. Rourke tells us that he wants to die not for a woman but next to one, meanwhile Stallone spends every other scene trying to convince Statham that he doesnt need a woman. One of the reasons he gives is that Statham should be free to do manly things with his muscular man-pals. The resolution offered to Stallones own romantic sub-plot does nothing to counter this attitude towards the place of women in a film where female characters are only fragile victims of male violence. The films two females characters, played by Charisma Carpenter and Gisele Itié, have very little to do. Racially things arent any more enlightened either. Jet Li, whose character is nicknamed Yin Yang, is the butt of all jokes within the Expendables crew, but the real venom is saved for the assorted ethnic soldiers who cross paths with our heroes. These men are slaughtered in the hundreds in a film with the highest on-screen body count of any in memory. The film somehow scrapes a 15-rating, although many of the deaths are fairly gruesome, proving just how hard it is to get an 18 certificate these days. Limbs fly off left and right, whilst some bullets cut people in half. We dont kill people that way says Stallone to Dolph Lundgren when he takes it upon himself to hang a Somali pirate. These men have some sort of moral code, but it seems very specific. The most puzzling or amusing aspect of the films treatment of its ethnic antagonists is that they speak in English and with relative clarity and yet are subtitled, whilst the constant mumbling of Stallone, Statham and company goes without, however hard they are to understand. Sometimes it is bad acting, but often it is the fact that dialogue is lost in the mix, behind explosions and gunfire. In any case whole conversations took place during which I could not understand any words. I am not complaining. On the evidence of what I did hear, I am certain I wasnt missing much. The real tragedy is that Jason Statham delivers a poem at one point and this moment is sadly audible.
The Expendables is a film which only exists because of stunt casting. The story (a bunch of hard men have to kill an evil dictator) is not one which begged telling again. It is this collection of action stars of yesteryear (Schwarzenegger, Willis, Stallone) alongside current heroes (Statham, Li) and former wrestlers (Randy Couture, Steve Austin), which is the gimmick here. Each name now faintly pathetic on its own, but together pretty eye-catching on the marquee. And this ploy seems to be having its desired effect, at least on the screening I was at during which each star was greeted with thunderous applause. None more so than Arnie during his brief but imposing cameo which arguably boasted the films funniest line: whats his fucking problem? says Stallone of Schwarzenegger before Willis replies He wants to be president. I must confess that I am not a particularly big fan of the 80s action movie and I am fairly sure that everything I hated about this movie is the reason why so many others will love it. There are moments of bone-crunching violence, well choreographed scenes of martial arts, huge explosions and loads of silly one-liners. But the audience for this movie will be split down the middle between hardened dunces and young, T4-watching types so accustomed to adopting a posture of ironic distance that theyd probably laugh if you punched them in the balls. If you are hankering for some throwback Regan-era trash, then The A-Team is more fun and Predators is better made. But who am I kidding? Im not going to put anyone off seeing this movie, because chances are that if you are honestly of a mind to see it: you cant read. Ok, that is a major over-reaction, but what I'm getting at is that this movie is the dumb male equivalent of Sex & the City 2, pandering to the worst of human nature and should be avoided like the plague. The Expendables opens in the U.S. on August 13th and in the U.K. on August 19th.