It’s action all the way with Sly, Bruce et al
Film Review
the expendables
Cert: 18
Rhys Griffiths
IT’S arguably the action cast to end all action casts. In charge, Sly Stallone. Then there’s Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, wrestler Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke and our very own Jason Statham. Oh and Arnold Schwarzenegger has a cameo. The Expendables at least nails its colours firmly to the post, guaranteeing, if not substance, plenty of muscle and nostalgia of an explosive kind.
If the cast seems overwhelming, don’t worry – they’re not all on the same team. The Expendables are a tough crew headed by Barney Ross (Stallone), with Statham as his right-hand man, who specialise in beating, or rather butchering, bad guys. Hired to overthrow a corrupt dictator and a rogue FBI agent terrorizing the fictional island of Vilena, they may have finally met their match.
The Expendables features explosions, violence of a very gory kind, and masses of testosterone – in a nutshell, it’s an entirely formulaic action picture. But with a cast like that it could hardly fail to be fun, and it’ll tick all the right boxes for action fans still licking their wounds after the appalling A-Team.