50 God-Tier Acting Moments Buried in Bad Movies
3. Mickey Rourke's Monologue - The Expendables
One rarely hears much about Mickey Rourke these days, and whenever they do, it's usually nothing good. His most high-profile role in recent years was, wait for it... being a housemate in Celebrity Big Brother 2025. Oh, and he got kicked out early for unacceptable behaviour.
Therefore, it could be easy for some to forget that, however bad the man's filmography has been lately, and regardless of any personal controversies, he is a phenomenally good actor. Let's not forget, he's the guy who snuck in a nuanced, powerful monologue about the trauma of war into an Expendables movie of all things. The first Expendables film is pretty tedious, and it's only really memorable for featuring one of the most out-of-place movie scenes ever. In the best kind of way, that is.
One night, after a mission, Barney (Sylvester Stallone) chats to his old army buddy Tool (Rourke), who does pretty much the last thing anyone expected an Expendables character to do: he does a haunting monologue about his experiences fighting in Bosnia, and confesses to allowing a stranger to commit suicide instead of helping her. So powerful is the speech that a shaken Barney silently walks away afterwards.
Rourke's delivery of the monologue is outstanding, too, and this is the kind of acting you'd see in awards contention were it a larger role in a better movie. Seriously, why did this go so hard?!