He almost may qualify for Social Security. His face may look now like an overtanned Shar-Pei’s. But that doesn’t stop 64-year-old Sly Stallone.
He defiantly directs himself in a scene where he outruns a hurtling airplane, jumps for it and then hangs by his fingertips from its open doorway as it ascends. Like “The Expendables,” his 1980s acid flashback of an action-adventure, senior citizen Rambo earns an “A” for chutzpah and an “F” for credibility. Cheesy, inappropriate and irresistible — these descriptions could all apply to both the man and the movie.
Every laughable cliche informs the story, dialogue, cardboard characters and even the “classic” rock soundtrack of today’s spectacle. But the testosterone-drenched adorability of Sly and friends as they spray bullets, hurl daggers, judo-flip each other and dodge sky-high fireballs by the dozens — it somehow cannot be denied. An ancient crew out of action movie heaven — the youngest member being 37-year-old cockney toughie Jason Statham — looks like it is having a ball making this politically incorrect caca. The cheeky attitude radiates off the screen.
As if we didn’t already get that “The Expendables” is meant as nostalgia for the bad old days of swaggering, hard-core R-rated body count pictures, there’s even one satiric scene where Stallone’s former peers Ah-nold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis make a cameo appearance. Apparently, everybody is in on the joke.
And, trust and believe, the script is a joke — co-written with Stallone by David Callaham. It involves a sinister CIA rogue (Eric Roberts), a puppet Latin American generalissimo (David Zayas), the dictator’s beautiful victimized daughter Sandra (Giselle Itie) and cocaine smuggling. With these elements, can’t you just write your own movie?
All anyone really needs to know is that mercenary good guys are trying to stop sadistic bad guys — accompanied by as much death of the extras and destruction of the cheap sets as possible.
Stallone’s Barney Ross leads “characters” played by Mickey Rourke (age 57), martial arts expert Jet Li (age 47), Ultimate Fighter Randy Couture (age 47), NFL vet Terry Crews (age 42) and the aforementioned Statham against “Stone Cold” Steve Austin (age 45) and hunky has-been Dolph Lundgren (age 52). They all play rough variations on their familiar pop culture personas while proving to middle-aged men that they can still be hot and dangerous past their prime.
Plus, these “Expendables” have the courage of their regressive, male fantasy convictions.
