Director: Scott Waugh
Starring: Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone, Jacob Scipio
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 103 mins. Reviewed in Oct 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Strong action violence

The Expendables are the world’s last line of defence and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table.

Jason Statham, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone, Jacob Scipio. Directed by Scott Waugh. 103 minutes. Rated MA (Strong action violence).

As we might expect from the previous three Expendable episodes, this is an old-fashioned, macho action show. With an emphasis on old – Sylvester Stallone turned 77 as the film was released, Andy Garcia 67, Dolph Lundgren 66 – but hero, Jason Statham (just coming from Meg 2: The Trench) only 56. In a fight scene, Sylvester Stallone’s character throws a fight opponent over his shoulder and the immediate thought arises of stunt doubles.

We might have been expecting more oldies, as there were in the previous films, but this is something of the B-cast. There are the two other action actors, Tony Jaa from Malaysia and Iko Uwais from Indonesia, both popular martial arts movies A-listers.

The often crass humour is of the bar-brawling, crotch-clutching type. And the issue of the presence of women? Not a main feature of this kind of very male action show. At first, there is a stridently angry Gina (Fox) and pole dancers and assorted women in a bar. And the language about women and crass references are very much out of place in these times. And this must have occurred to the writers because there are later references to dealing well with women and, to our surprise, the leader of the main expedition turns out to be Gina, with a female associate, but in terms of casting, raising the question of the credibility of Fox leading an attack expedition confronting a large ship, big crew, in the Indian Ocean carrying nuclear warheads.

So, an opening of explosions and gunfire in Libya, then the expedition in the Indian Ocean, fights, heroics, and a high body count of expendables, mainly the baddies.

There is one of those old-fashioned twists in the narrative, the American government sending the expedition off, a traitor, a final confrontation. This is one of those action adventures that one can watch, enjoy and criticise, wonder about the credibility of so much of the plotline (action in Libya, the invader confronting a general, might have taken about 20 minutes in real time – but then, the scene in the bar, the report of the events, the rounding up of an expedition, and a flight from the US to Libya, the forces arriving at the end of the 20 minutes in real time).

Apart from Stallone being absent for most of the film and the revelation of the traitor, it is all rather obvious and straightforward stuff.