The Expendables 2 | Little White Lies

The Expend­ables 2

16 Aug 2012 / Released: 17 Aug 2012

Group of armed mercenaries in a city street
Group of armed mercenaries in a city street
In the spir­it of this gung-ho tale about a mil­i­tarist old boys net­work, three review­ers sit down for a chat about The Expend­ables 2.

Con­ver­sa­tion on The Expend­ables 2

Loca­tion: Tom Cribb, Piccadilly

Pan­el: Adam Lee Davies, Paul Fair­clough, David Jenkins

David Jenk­ins: To start things off, I’m going to give a short plot pré­cis of the film. So, the first thing to say is that it’s a vir­tu­al remake of the first instal­ment of The Expend­ables. We start with a big action set piece in Nepal where our heroes dri­ve into a rot­ten, cor­rupt barter town, shoot the place up then escape in an old war plane. The film then sees a bad­die – who we won’t name – nab­bing a secret blue­print that gives the loca­tion of some hid­den Sovi­et plu­to­ni­um. Then, the Expend­ables essen­tial­ly spend the remain­der of the film mean­der­ing through east­ern Europe and fend­ing off ambush­es. The grand finale is a mas­sive shoot-out in an air­port. The film is direct­ed by Simon West, who did Con Air, to which this has many similarities.

Paul Fair­clough: The Sovi­ets, as every­one knows, would nev­er have stored plu­to­ni­um in Alba­nia because they had an edgy rela­tion­ship with them.

Adam Lee Davies: After that open­er, they fly to wher­ev­er Harley David­son and the Marl­boro Man was filmed.

DJ: Delaware.

PF: To say that the tone was uneven would be a bit of an understatement.

DJ: Yes, the film felt like it was four scenes, each one run­ning to about 25 min­utes. The scene where [Jean Claude] Van Damme walks out of the mist with his evil Slavon­ic quar­ter­backs, they talk for about 20 min­utes: Are you tough enough?”, Are YOU tough enough?”…

PF: Are you hard enough?”

ALD: I’m gonna man you up.”

DJ: Then he takes his gir­dle off.

PF: It did look like it was verg­ing on a porno at a few points.

ALD: Yes, espe­cial­ly at the end when he was whip­ping Van Damme with a chain.

PF: But that would be a cheap shot to start say­ing that. It’s one of those films that, if you try to crit­i­cise it, peo­ple will call you a spoil­sport. But they’ll be…

ALD: Wrong.

DJ: One of the things about the first film is that it had a lot of links to real news events. So you have Soma­li pirates at the begin­ning of the film. What was real­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble about the first film is that it was trans­plant­i­ng the Expend­ables into these real sit­u­a­tions and play­ing out this impe­ri­al­ist Amer­i­can fan­ta­sy. This one was more about a bunch of guys who go out to get some oth­er guys.

PF: This was Action Man territory.

DJ: Unlike in the first one, at least here they’re not oper­at­ing in a world where women have become extinct.

PF: That’s prob­a­bly what they’d like.

DJ: So what oth­er films did this remind you of?

ALD: Well McBain obviously.

PF: Act of Valor.

DJ: Is it worse than Act of Valor?

PF: Act of Val­our was mak­ing more of a polit­i­cal state­ment, but it was com­plete­ly sin­cere. It made sense with­in its own world. I can’t believe you can run from the jun­gle and into a water­plane and take off with­in 15 seconds.

DJ: So Act of Val­our works on the lev­el of basic logistics?

PH: Yes. Even though its val­ues were vile, it was hon­est about them. All of the emo­tion­al bits in The Expend­ables 2 where the music soars and they talk about their loss are com­plete­ly unearned.

ALD: They earned laugh­ter though.

DJ: The fun­ni­est bit of the film for me was when they bury their fall­en broth­er on an Alban­ian hill­top. Under some stones.

PF: But it’s Alba­nia. They have no law or sys­tem of record­ing deaths.

DJ: The theme of the film relates to the archa­ic, and how old things are tougher and more robust than new-fan­gled crap. So he has his antique Harley and his bat­tered old pro­peller plane. There’s even a bit dur­ing the final fire fight where he’s being shot at with machine guns and he’s defend­ing him­self with a Mag­num. Knives equate to hon­esty in this world. It’s killing as an arti­san pursuit.

ALD: It’s hor­ri­ble in that sense.

PF: They’re hark­ing back to an era of certainty.

DJ: I think that’s how the entire film is justified.

PF: Peo­ple love this and are excit­ed by this.

DJ: So, high points and low points?

PF: The sten­cilling on their war vehi­cles was very good.

ALD: They could have been fun­nied up though. Com­bat Rock. Shit Banana. Objects in rear view mir­ror may appear more awe­some than they actu­al­ly are.’ Some­thing like that…

PF: There were lots of three line zingers that fell real­ly flat. So you had the set-up, the response and then you’re wait­ing for the punch­line, and Arnie would say, Yes” or Okay”.

ALD: Or, I’ll be back.”

DJ: What did you think about the fact that there was this big explo­sion of blood when any­one got shot?

ALD: I thought that was amaz­ing. Dreamlike.

PF: Me too. It’s like Call of Duty.

DJ: Well, half of me thinks that they’re try­ing to show what it would actu­al­ly be like to be shot in the face, but then again, they’re prob­a­bly doing it because it looks so damn cool.

ALD: And then they run with it and shoot 5,000 peo­ple in Budapest airport.

PF: It’s weird, because the film is so clear­ly a fan­ta­sy, and then they impose this real­is­tic gore to make peo­ple con­nect with the material.

ALD: They should’ve called it Reagan’s Raiders.

DJ: Not sure if even Rea­gan would’ve signed off on this one.

PF: It’s like if they remade All Qui­et on the West­ern Front and put loads of wise­cracks in it.

DJ: How does the film relate to those schlocky 80s action films like Cobra, Ram­bo, Com­man­do, etc…? I think it even relates to films before that, like The Wild Geese or Kelly’s Heroes.

PF: But films like The Wild Geese and The Dogs of War were films that took time to unfold and they had some char­ac­ter and back sto­ry. They were quite cyn­i­cal movies as well. Plus, they actu­al­ly had a sense of per­il. Where is the per­il in Expend­ables 2? When did you ever think that any of them were going to die?

ALD: I think we’re read­ing too much into this. This film is not wor­thy of us try­ing to trace its DNA. Here’s what it is: It’s what Sly thinks is cool.

DJ: Does Sly want us to take this at face val­ue? There was a lot of unin­ten­tion­al­ly fun­ny dialogue.

PF: To him, it’s The Hang­over. It’s his idea of a guys week­end. It’s like that film Space Cow­boys, with some old guys who can’t see that the world has changed. And what’s the film where a bunch of guys go back to col­lege because they missed out on being fratboys?

ALD: Back to School. To get $10 mil­lion, Rod­ney Dan­ger­field has to fin­ish his O‑Levels.

DJ: It’s old guys try­ing to relive their past glo­ries through the prism of their own tat­tered iconography.

ALD: It’s Rolodex bullshit.

DJ: Okay, let’s score this up. Anticipation?

ALD: I’d go three, because you’ve got­ta see shit like this.

PF: I’d say four, because I thought it was a sequel to The Untouchables.

DJ: I’m going to go two, because I’ve seen the first one and there’s no way it could be any worse. Enjoyment?

ALD: Three. It was stu­pid, but fun-stupid.

PF: Two, for the bits where the audi­ence helped me through the bad times.

DJ: I’m going to say two also. It was boil­er­plate stuff. In retrospect?

ALD: Zero. Not only do I wish they were all dead, I wish I was dead too.

PF: I think I would go for zero.

DJ: Zero would mean that you want to walk out of the cin­e­ma, sit by a foun­tain and cry for two days.

ALD: If I wasn’t here with you, I’d be there, doing that.

DJ: Does the fact that we’ve had an excit­ing, informed con­ver­sa­tion about the film mer­it at least a one?

ALD: Okay, almost a one.

PF: One, with caveats.

[Tape ends]

You might like