Expendables: Why Première loved Stallone’s film
The first opus can be seen again this evening on TV, while number 4, much less successful, is released in theaters.
Updated October 12, 2023: If Expendables 4 is currently being done assassinated by criticismin 2010, First had defended the first part, the concept of which was imagined by Sylvester Stallone, who wanted to find his friends and adversaries from the 1980s united in a single actioner. Here is the long review we published at the time.
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Review from August 18, 2010: It’s simple : Expendables is undoubtedly one of the craziest films of this year. Don’t listen to the tired critics: here’s why the new Stallone is a masterpiece.
To properly measure the beauty of the miracle “Expendables”, we must remember to what extent Rocky Balboa was, so to speak, “nothing” at the time of its release, at the beginning of 2007, other than the vague last stand of a former boss, obviously reviled by the international cinephile, and who was also managed to alienate – through laughable ego-trips and awful nonsense spread over three decades – almost all of his former audience.
Barely three and a half years ago, then, this little film of nothing at all, shot in barely three weeks, made millions of spectators cry, reminding them with its telefilmed fragility to what extent we have all in us something Balboa Rocky. And therefore Sylvester Stallone. Whether we grew up in the 80’s or not. Whether we ended up confusing him with his puppet from Les Guignols, or whether we think of him as an authentic myth of US cinema.
From then on the divisions flared one after the other in the light of this surprise triumph, as everyone (the old, the young, the intellectuals, the truckers, the philosophy students, ad lib) immediately proclaimed themselves as convinced worshipers of Sly. And for the first time in his career, the Italian stallion was unanimously appreciated wherever he went.
Adored as he had not been since Rocky 4, but not quite by the same audience, nor quite for the same reasons, Stallone, who we imagined with the sticker “Nostalgia, when you hold us” stuck across his weathered face, then came back to clean up within his fan base and exterminate vermin with a devastating poison: John Rambo. Gauled like a Thai B, all muscles, and extremely gory eviscerations, the film, vaguely melancholy, impressed above all with its electrifying energy and its insane brutality. Especially not the work of a mellowed-out grandpa, filming at eye level, as the previous one suggests, and too bad for those who imagined a repentant Sly, in the process of late Eastwoodization. With John Rambo the message was clear: the Oscars would be for another time.
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Third movement of this hair-raising comeback (the craziest in the history of cinema? Who knows…), The Expendables cares even less about respectability than angry John Rambo. The film puts both feet in the dish, and its hand in the ass of its spectators, by offering them a big ride full of explosions in Latin America, customized Harleys, and sessions at the local tattoo artist.
Like the good old times ? Not even. And that’s the big surprise, as The Expendables almost obstinately refuses any melancholy, to think of itself above all as a big, deeply contemporary action film. So yes, there is a very 80’s scene with Sly, Bruce, and The Governor. And there is also the old man Mickey Rourke who makes you cry while talking about the end of an era, alone in front of his mirror, with his completely misshapen face. But above all there are scenes that break out, and which no (NO) blockbuster of the last three years can match in terms of pure excitement and cool brutality. So if the film, cheeky and looked like a video club product, far from the twilight beauty of Rocky Balboa, or the hardcore stylization of John Rambo, risks disappointing the worshipers of good taste, there is not one left less a peak of entertainment carried out at a hellish pace, and from this point of view, one of the best Stallone ever seen.
The fact remains that the film also fascinates and above all because it is both the absolute antithesis of Rocky Balboa, at the same time as its most obvious extension, once we take into account that the guy in charge is is Stallone. There’s something unsettling about seeing him here, no longer trying to capitalize on nostalgia and the end of an era, but instead trying to steal the spotlight from today’s action stars. To prove that he still has it in his gut, and nothing to envy them. No “too old for his bullshit”, no, certainly not. Just a flashy return to business as if nothing really happened between Rambo 3 and this one. The fact remains that by dint of triviality and frontal-framed jokes, there should not be much left of the beautiful Stallonian unanimity after this opus. Did Sly break his toy again? No problem truckers, the kids (and us) will love it. Like the good old days, after all.
By François Grelet
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Since publishing this glowing review, Expendables was a hit and was logically entitled to sequels, however less successful. A 4th part remains under study, as well as a 100% female spin-off entitled Expendabellesbut Stallone seems more interested in the sequel to Rocky. He is currently preparing Creed 2always with Michael B.Jordan.
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