![\"expendables\"](\"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/expendables-poster-1.jpg\" "\\"expendables\\"")
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A group of mercenaries attempt to kill off the head of a puppet government. Explosions ensue.\u00a0 Lots of them.<\/p>\n
Something of a cross between Marion Cobretti and John Rambo, Ross is the de facto leader of the group.\u00a0 An aging marksman with a lost sense of honor, he is just going job to job until he dies.\u00a0 He has a fatalistic attitude, believing and accepting the possibility his next job may very well be his last.\u00a0 It is this directionless life that ultimately leads him to Sandra, in whom Barney sees a purpose and a reason to fight again.\u00a0 The guy can take more than your average beating and keep on kicking, fires semi-automatic handguns faster than most machine guns can shoot, and is ripped like an action hero should be.\u00a0 Damn right he’s bad-ass.<\/p>\n Stallone plays the part more or less as himself.\u00a0 The guy even likes stogies, motorcycles and vintage automobiles.\u00a0 But it’s in Barney’s hit and miss humor and personality quirks that Stallone really shines through.\u00a0 This makes sense, seeing as Sly seems intent on finding out how far he can go in this new phase of his career.\u00a0 The more he injects himself into his projects, the more successful they seem to be.\u00a0\u00a0 With Barney Ross, Stallone is able to create a new character that he can freely use to express everything he wants to say that would’ve been uncharacteristic of his other creations.\u00a0 Had Cobra been a franchise, it would be easy to see the Cobretti character ending up where this one begins.<\/p>\n Lee is a romantic with a very intense business side.\u00a0 While not on a mission he showers all his attention on his love interest, apparently refusing to mention what he does to earn the money to do so.\u00a0 While on a mission, Christmas is something of a competitive team player.\u00a0 He’ll attempt to one-up the man next to him, but never at the cost of the mission itself.\u00a0 He has a sense of duty and a somewhat naive sense of justice in the world.\u00a0 All this can make him territorial outside the job, seeing as it is all he works for, but loyal inside his work.\u00a0 An expert with knives, Christmas is an all around efficient fighter who can kill just as easily with a gun as with his bare hands.<\/p>\n Christmas is actually a bit unlike any character Statham has ever played, being a something of a secondary lead and essentially the last pure heart in an ensemble piece.\u00a0 It’s quite something to see him play a serious professional with an occasional lack of confidence.\u00a0 Statham also gets to do something here you almost never see him do: smile.\u00a0 And he smiles a lot in this picture.\u00a0 This has got to be the most he’s ever grinned in a movie, and it’s nice to see the guy relax a bit.<\/p>\n Yang is, rather obviously, the martial arts expert of the group.\u00a0 What he does with his money and why he seems to always need more of it is a question never honestly answered in the film, but he does carry a complex from being the shortest member of the group.\u00a0 That being said, he is a lethally fast fighter both armed and otherwise.\u00a0 Outside the job he may carry a demeanor of candid innocence, but when it’s time to kill the man is intense and almost scary.\u00a0 Plus, he gets to hold his gat gangsta-like.<\/p>\n I have to admit, I think Li is a bit underutilized in the movie.\u00a0 As far as the three main characters go, I felt Li left the least amount of impact.\u00a0 He’s great in the comedic scenes and he can certainly perform the action when called upon, but one of the film’s major failings is in never giving Li much of an opportunity to shine during his action moments and leaving much his characterization offscreen.\u00a0 Still, he gets some fun moments with Stallone about his height and mocks Couture’s over sensitive nature.<\/p>\n Portrayed by Lundgren, Gunnar is the most dangerous man in the movie.\u00a0 A soldier of fortune gradually losing his grip due to both drugs and circumstance, he can change moods on a dime and won’t hesitate to exchange loyalties for money or just to prove a point.\u00a0 He’s a wild card with a gun.\u00a0 A very big wild card with a very big gun.\u00a0 Lundgren is the most fun when playing crazy types and hasn’t quite had the opportunity to go this far off the deep end since Universal Soldier, so it’s a blast seeing him do it again here.\u00a0 Bringing a certain amount of threat and swagger, Dolph pretty much steals the show with very little screen time.<\/p>\n In a role originally intended for Wesley Snipes, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Terry Crews filling Caesar’s tremendous shoes.\u00a0 Caesar is an intense and powerful fellow, who loves his weaponry and won’t hesitate to use it.\u00a0 He’s also got all the muscles we’ve missed since the 1980s.\u00a0 He’s clearly the artillery and back-up plan for the group, hanging back until it’s necessary to unleash hell.\u00a0 And damn, the automatic shotgun he carries is one of the greatest things ever put in an Action film.<\/p>\n So named because of one were wanting to pass by him they’d have to pay a heavy price, Toll Road is just a big mean fighting machine.\u00a0 This is to be expected, of course, seeing as he’s played by UFC champ Randy Couture.\u00a0 Couture gives Road a slightly geekish personality, a man insecure about his physical appearance but in total control on the battlefield.\u00a0 He crushes his enemies like the nothings they are and would probably ask for seconds if it occurred to him.<\/p>\n A former member of the group, Tool has burned out from his years as a paid killer and now acts as the group’s guru\/tattoo artist\/secretary.\u00a0 He sets up the jobs, gives advice, and occasionally manly moral support.\u00a0 Like Lundgren, Rourke makes the most of his limited screen time and attempts to run away with the movie.\u00a0 He manages to form the movie’s emotional center, revealing the womanizing tough guy routine to be a tortured facade, covering a soul filled with pain and regret now too far gone to regain a true sense of humanity.\u00a0 It’s actually quite so done it almost doesn’t belong in the movie.<\/p>\n Munroe is your perfect cliche of a smarmy, over- authoritative ex-CIA bad guy type.\u00a0 He’s callous, threatening, and indifferent to the plight of others.\u00a0 He’s manipulative and intelligent enough to get away with it.\u00a0 Still, he’s not much good in a fight and uses money to get his way.\u00a0 His lackeys do the physical work for him, leaving him as something more like a puppeteer.\u00a0 And hey, it’s Eric Roberts.\u00a0 Fuck yeah.<\/p>\n Garza is a man driven mad by power, a man who once had good intentions but now sees only the error of his ways and no way but to continue forward.\u00a0 As resentful as he is toward Munroe, Garza is like a junkie.\u00a0 As long as Munroe has the money Garza thinks he needs, he is likely to remain a slavish middle man in Munroe’s quest for power.<\/p>\n Since Austin is a giant, muscle-bound goblin of a man, leading roles (particularly as a protagonist) generally fail to suit him.\u00a0 This isn’t a slam against the actor (actually, I think he handles himself just fine), just his presence and overall look.\u00a0 Of course, these same traits make him for an excellent thug or lackey.\u00a0 Here, as the drill sergeant-ish Paine, Austin is perfectly cast.\u00a0 Paine comes off as the most dangerous of the adversaries faced by the Expendables, a big mean motherfucker with no neck to speak of, but no neck is necessary for the man who actually broke Stallone’s in real life.<\/p>\n The Brit, as he is named in the credits, doesn’t get a lot of screen time but he makes good use of what little he does get.\u00a0 He’s evil Gary Daniels (goatee included), a martial arts bad-ass so hardcore it takes two other bad-asses combining their powers to bring him down.\u00a0 He’s a cocky Brit, but one that can back it up.<\/p>\n Sandra is the human MacGuffin of the picture, the contact on the island of Vilena, and whose dictator father the Expendables are being hired to depose.\u00a0 She is an artist at heart, but a revolutionary by necessity.\u00a0 Her single goal is the freedom of her people, even if it means the death of her remaining family.<\/p>\n Christmas’s girlfriend, Lacy is an impatient and untrusting woman.\u00a0 Full of excuses for her own incompetence, she blames Lee for her failings in their relationship… or maybe I’m just choosing sides.\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 Her shrill performance really kind of bugged me.\u00a0 But I suppose it’s like walking in on the wrong conversation at the wrong time.\u00a0 She’s clearly been under duress.\u00a0 In any case, she seems like a confused woman whose only purpose in the film is to get Statham to beat on some guys on a basketball court.\u00a0 So nice going, I guess.<\/p>\n For a film that’s supposed to be a throwback to the 80s, it’s surprising how very little man flesh is on display here.\u00a0 And aside from the douchebags playing basketball and that scene where Terry Crews implies that he may actually be sleeping with his gun, there’s very little to go on.<\/p>\n Sly does take off his shirt to get a tattoo, and Dolph Lundgren’s explanation as to why he’s not with the Expendables anymore is that they’re having a “lover’s quarrel”, but the only focus on sexuality in the movie is between Jason Statham and Charisma Carpenter.\u00a0 And even that’s glazed over.\u00a0 So very odd.<\/p>\n To be blunt, women are in this movie for the sole purpose of getting men into fights (or helping to bring Mickey Rourke to tears… that bitch).\u00a0 Giselle Iti\u00e9’s character is the impetus for much of the plot, which revolves mostly around killing shit loads of Brazilian extras.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Charisma Carpenter’s entire subplot only leads to Jason Statham kicking a bunch of guys’ asses on a basketball court.\u00a0 I’m not saying I have a problem with this, but it probably wouldn’t have killed Sly to write in maybe a couple decent female interaction that didn’t lead to straight up violence.\u00a0 Of course, that would probably belong in another movie.<\/p>\n![\"Sly\"](\"https:\/\/allouttabubblegum.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Sly-1.jpg\" "\\"Sly\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nSylvester Stallone is Barney Ross<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nJason Statham is Lee Christmas<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nJet Li is Yin Yang<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nDolph Lundgren<\/span> is Gunnar Jensen<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nTerry Crews is Hale Caesar<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nRandy Couture<\/span> is Toll Road<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMickey Rourke is Tool<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
THE VILLAINS:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEric Roberts<\/span> is James Munroe<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDavid Zayas is General Garza<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nSteve Austin<\/span> is Paine<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\nGary Daniels is The Brit<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
THE REST:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGiselle Iti\u00e9<\/span> is Sandra Garza<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nCharisma Carpenter is Lacy<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
[THE SEX AND VIOLENCE]<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n
DUDESWEAT AND MACHISMO:<\/span><\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEXPLOITATION AND MISOGYNY:<\/span><\/h3>\n
MURDER BY NUMBERS: [ 188 ]<\/span><\/h3>\n
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