Rock the Kasbah

For F*** Magazine

ROCK THE KASBAH

Director : Barry Levinson

Cast : Bill Murray, Kate Hudson, Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride, Scott Caan, Arian Moayed, Leem Lubany, Beejan Land

Genre : Comedy

Run Time : 106 mins

Opens : 5 November 2015

Rating : NC16 (Some Drug Use And Coarse Language)

Bill Murray is out to get Afghanistan in the groove in this comedy-drama. Murray plays Richie Lanz, a washed-up rock manager whose glory days are far behind him. When he takes his remaining client Ronnie Smiler (Deschanel) to Afghanistan to perform for American troops, Ronnie abandons him, leaving Richie high and dry, stranded without money and a passport. A seasoned wheeler-dealer, Richie comes into contact with a variety of colourful personalities, including American prostitute Ms. Merci (Hudson), mercenary Bombay Brian (Willis) and cab driver Riza (Moayed). While staying the night as guests of Pashtun elder Tariq Khan (Fahim Fazli), Richie is struck by the remarkable singing voice of Tariq’s daughter Salima (Lubany). Richie makes it his mission to get Salima on the televised singing contest Afghan Star. However, an enormous uphill battle lies ahead of Salima and Richie, as it is forbidden for a Pashtun woman to sing, and doing so is life-threatening. 

Rock the Kasbah takes its name from The Clash’s song Rock the Casbah, though that song doesn’t feature in the film. Richie’s daughter informs him that he won’t find any Kasbahs in Afghanistan; the walled citadels are in North Africa. The premise is ripe for both comedy and drama, but the film’s execution does leave a fair amount to be desired. Director Barry Levinson, working from a screenplay by Mitch Glazer, attempts to gingerly balance the big belly laugh moments with some serious, sensitive thematic elements, and it doesn’t always work. Afghanistan as depicted in Rock the Kasbah plays into all the stereotypes ingrained in western popular culture: rubble is strewn through the streets, bombings are an everyday occurrence, warlords rock up to villages on horseback packing AK-47s, the whole works. At the same time, there are attempts to subvert said stereotypes and the film is dedicated to real-life Afghan Star contestant Setara Hussainzada, a woman who risked her life to pursue her musical dream. 

Rock the Kasbah has something to say, but instead of finding a meaningful way to say it, the film frantically exclaims “look! Bill Murray!” in the hopes that audiences will be more forgiving of anything else because of the film’s star. Rock the Kasbah does play to all of Murray’s strengths as a comedic actor. Richie Lanz is an experienced huckster who claims to have discovered Madonna and is eager to regale anyone with tall tales about rubbing elbows with music’s biggest stars. It’s the “loveable scoundrel” archetype through and through. He mangles Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water while strumming a rubab in front of unamused Pashtun tribal leaders and wakes up tied to the bed in a compromising position after a particularly wild night. Richie Lanz is the brash American abroad who thinks he can talk his way out of anything, and that’s right up Murray’s alley. 

The thing is, this really shouldn’t be a story about Richie Lanz, it should be about Salima Khan, the aspiring songstress. Levinson wants to avoid the standard treacly “fight for your dreams!” angle, even though that story seems like one that can be meaningfully told. Salima is played with quiet dignity and understated vulnerability by Palestinian actress Lubany, who starred in the Oscar-nominated 2013 film Omar. She performs some very pleasant covers of Yusuf Islam (the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens) songs, including Peace Train (this is not a subtle movie), but the focus is never really on Salima’s journey; it’s about how the wily American rock manager who helps her along. Naturally, there are other Afghan characters who are positively portrayed, namely Beejan Land’s charismatic and canny Afghan Star host Daoud Sididi and Arian Moayed’s friendly cab driver/translator Riza, but they all play second fiddle to the American characters. 

Rock the Kasbah is a reasonably star-studded affair, with big(-ish) names brought in to play what essentially are caricatures. Deschanel’s long-suffering Ronnie Smiler is only in this as a plot catalyst, bailing out on Richie after being fed up with her lack of prospects under his management. Willis brings his comedic chops to bear, though we are disappointed that the movie doesn’t reference his blues singer alter ego Bruno Radolini. Hudson seems miscast as the temptress “hooker with a heart of gold”, since she’s more sunny than sultry, but she is better here than in many of the sub-par romantic comedies she’s headlined. Rounding out the cast are Danny McBride and Scott Caan as a pair of con men/arms dealers. They appear to have been inspired by the real-life stoners-turned-gunrunners who are the subjects of the book Arms and the Dudes. 

Entertaining and funny but occasionally misguided, Rock the Kasbah seems afraid to dive into the weighty material at hand in order to avoid alienating audiences, counting on Murray to make everything go down smoother. Rock the Kasbah touches on America’s involvement in Afghanistan and the way woman are treated in the Middle East, but coming at this from a humorous angle is about as tricky as it sounds. 

Summary: Rock the Kasbah leans heavily on the comic presence of its leading man, sometimes at the expense of meaningfully digging into the themes it sets out to shed light on. 

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

For F*** Magazine

SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL FOR 

Director : Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez

Cast : Jessica Alba, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, Eva Green, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, Juno Temple, Jaime King, Bruce Willis, Jamie Chung, Lady Gaga, Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven

Genre : Action/Thriller

Opens : 8 August 2014

Rating : R21 (Violence, Nudity & Sexual Scenes) 

Running time: 102 mins

Basin CITY. A cesspool dripping with BLOOD and ALCOHOL and SEX and GRIME. A grimy CESSPOOL. NINE years after the FIRST movie, we RETURN. FOUR interlocking stories. “Just ANOTHER Saturday NIGHT” – Marv (Rourke) BEATS up PUNKS and hangs off the side of POLICE CARS. “The Long BAD Night” – Johnny (Gordon-Levitt), a self-assured young gambler, beats Senator Roark (Boothe) in a GAME of POKER. Big MISTAKE. “A DAME to Kill For” – Ava Lord (Green), sly WICKEDNESS taken the form of a WOMAN. She CASTS her SPELL upon former flame Dwight (Brolin) once more. Can he ESCAPE this enchantress’ GRASP? “Nancy’s Last DANCE” – stripper Nancy (Alba) is victim no MORE. She seeks to AVENGE the death of Hartigan (Willis), her PROTECTOR. AVENGING his DEATH. Her crosshairs are SET on Roark.

            

            This reviewer had planned to write the whole thing in the style of Frank Miller but gave up after that paragraph. The first Sin City film broke its share of ground by hewing closely to the stylisation Miller had drawn into his graphic novels, using visual effects and cinematography to replicate the striking aesthetic of the Sin City books. Black and white with occasional violent bursts of selective colour, often lapsing into animated silhouettes. Miller was initially reluctant to allow an adaptation to be filmed, but Robert Rodriguez won him over and they became co-directors on both movies. It’s nine years later and it’s not quite so novel anymore. In-between then and now we’ve had the likes of 300 and the dismal The Spirit, the latter directed by Miller himself. It’s still a great gimmick and we bet this movie is stunning in 3D (we saw the 2D version). However, any gimmick can only carry a film so far.

            The movie is clearly striving for a noir feel but so much of the Frank Miller dialogue, in reaching for a hard-boiled attitude, comes off as laughably silly. “It’s another hot night. The kind of night that makes people do sweaty, secret things,” Dwight says in voiceover. When he gets kicked in the crotch, he describes it as “an atom bomb go(ing) off between my legs.” The intensity of all the brutal, wince-inducing violence in the film ends up being undercut by the writing. “A Dame to Kill For” has as its central character an evil, manipulative, often-naked seductress. Eva Green vamps it up entertainingly as is her speciality, but there’s not much more to Ava Lord than that – she’s a textbook femme fatale. The character’s speech about the nature of insanity and evil from the graphic novel, which would have added a layer or two, is cut. “Nancy’s Last Dance”, an original story written for this film, also undoes everything the character went through in the first film. Nancy, that narrow beam of light that was able to escape the darkness of Sin City, is now just another avenging angel. “The Long Bad Night”, the other original story, is carried by Gordon-Levitt playing against Boothe but is never wholly compelling.

            The film’s ensemble cast gets to play it up in ways few other movies would let them, to mostly entertaining results. Josh Brolin, playing Dwight before the character had plastic surgery to look like Clive Owen, is convincingly tough and grizzled. Powers Boothe is a hoot as a “love to hate” villain of the most extreme variety. Gordon-Levitt sinks his teeth into playing Johnny in his transition from cocksure and feeling untouchable to wounded and seething. The afore-mentioned Green, taking the role long-linked to Angelina Jolie, does look like she’s having a ball and seems extremely comfortable with the nigh-gratuitous nudity. Speaking of showing skin, Jessica Alba famously has a no-nudity clause but given Nancy’s get-ups in this film, she might as well be naked. Her attempts at playing an angry Nancy galvanised into taking up arms against Roark are ropey at best. Bruce Willis plays a ghost. Odd sense of déjà vu there.

            In 2005, before the full-on boom of movies based on comic books and graphic novels that we’re experiencing now, Sin City was unlike anything else out there. It was striking, bold and impactful. Now, the cool factor of the film being shot on a digital back-lot with everything but the actors and key props computer-generated has subsided. As over the top as A Dame to Kill For is, it falls short of the visceral oomph the first film had. Comic book fans know Frank Miller as a writer and artist who helped define the medium with the likes of The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, but who seems to have lost his mind, judging from the atrocious likes of Holy Terror and All Star Batman and Robin. His misogynistic attitudes and obsession with dark faux-poetry are on full display in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Robert Rodriguez serving as little more than his errand boy.

Summary: There’s no kill like overkill –Sin City: A Dame to Kill For brims with eye-catching imagery and uncompromising depictions of violence and sex, but there is little beneath its glossy, lurid surface.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

For  F*** Magazine, Singapore

Movie Review                                                                                                                  26/3/13

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION

2013

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, DJ Cotrona, Adrianne Palicki, Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Willis

Directed by: Jon M. Chu

Don’t call them dolls. They may be made in China and primarily out of ABS plastic, but that won’t change the fact that G.I. Joes are real American heroes. For many, these action figures are articulated nostalgia incarnate, the cartoons and comics adding to the fond childhood memories. When that nostalgia was made flesh in 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, however, most fans weren’t pleased and there were the Razzie nominations to show for it. But that didn’t stop a sequel from being made.

                        At the end of the first film, it was revealed that the President of the United States (Pryce) had been replaced by the villainous impostor Zartan (Arnold Vosloo as his “default appearance”). In this one, the “President” orders that the G.I. Joes be wiped out. Roadblock (Johnson), Flint (Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Palicki) manage to evade the attack, and must go about stopping the villainous machinations of Zartan’s superior, Cobra Commander (Luke Bracey, voiced by Robert Baker). Joining the three are silent ninja Snake Eyes (Ray Park), his apprentice Jinx (Elodie Yung) and the original G.I. Joe, General Joe Colton (Willis). Cobra forces, including saboteur Firefly (Ray Stevenson) and Snake Eyes’ archnemesis Storm Shadow (Lee Byung-hun) stand in their way.

            This movie was meant to be released in June 2012, but was delayed owing to a 3D post-conversion job and reshoots to increase Channing Tatum’s screen time. Toys had already hit the shelves and the film earned the distinction of being the only movie to have been advertised during two consecutive Super Bowls. The decision drew much flak and probably killed a fair amount of interest for the sequel.

            It’s a good thing then that this isn’t all that bad – in fact, it’s probably better than the first one. The film is not a straight-up sequel to the first, and while there are continuity nods and several returning characters, the style has shifted noticeably from plasticky, cartoony bombast to slightly more straight-faced action. Case in point: instead of a vast subterranean base beneath the Sahara desert, the Joes in this film operate from a derelict gym. That’s not to say Retaliation is less fun. And while this one is still silly, it’s not as aggressively so.

           
           Replacing Stephen Sommers in the director’s chair is Jon M. Chu, who is probably best known as “that guy who did the Justin Bieber movie”. Chu proves he can film action sequences as competently as he films dance numbers; the movie’s signature set piece in which Snake Eyes and Jinx infiltrate a Cobra stronghold high on a mountaintop and take on scores of redshirts on a cliff face is something to behold and is almost balletic. The film’s scripting duties are handled by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, best-known for penning the horror-comedy Zombieland. The duo lends the film a self-aware edge without it ever plunging into self-parody, which is a laudable balancing act.

            Let’s address the two reasons the movie was pushed back. First, the 3D. It’s a surprisingly decent conversion and though this reviewer experienced a little eyestrain, there’s a good feeling of depth and it does enliven the action sequences, the afore-mentioned cliff face skirmish in particular. Second, the Channing Tatum – he was a dull protagonist in the first film and rest assured, even with his additional scenes, he doesn’t play a huge role in this one and shares better chemistry with Dwayne Johnson than he did with Marlon Wayans (we’re glad Ripcord isn’t back for this one).

            Speaking of Dwayne Johnson, the guy fits into the G.I. Joe universe perfectly. He’s quite possibly the closest thing this generation has to the larger-than-life action hero likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jean-Claude Van Damme and with his bulging biceps and towering frame, looks right at home in a movie based on a line of toys. DJ Cotrona and Adrianne Palicki aren’t particularly interesting as Flint and Lady Jaye respectively (coincidentally, Cotrona was set to play Superman in the Justice League film that never happened and Adrianne Palicki played Wonder Woman in the TV pilot that wasn’t picked up) – but they put in serviceable supporting performances. If there's anyone who sticks out like a sore thumb, it's rapper RZA, who puts in an utterly cringe-worthy turn as the Blind Master. 

            Bruce Willis’ appearance as the retired general whose main “GI” of concern is likely to be his glycaemic index is pretty fun if not very consequential; it might be an even better nod to his iconic action hero status than his role in the Expendables films was. In the villain’s corner, former Bond adversary Jonathan Pryce is clearly enjoying himself in dual roles as Zartan-as-the-president and the actual president held captive by Cobra troops. A scene that sets up the film’s climax, in which the impostor President gathers the leaders of the world and threatens them with Cobra’s orbital weapons system Zeus, is decidedly Dr Strangelove-esque. Cobra Commander is not given a large role in the film, and while he doesn’t have Chris Latta’s shrill, raspy voice, his design is a nice homage to the cartoon. In addition, the ladies dragged along to see this can enjoy more Lee Byung-hun with his shirt off.

            Even though it’s less cartoony than its predecessor, Retaliation’s plot isn’t believable for a second – but the movie knows it’s a fun piece of escapist entertainment, and it can get away with the jingoism and a degree of ridiculousness by dint of being a G.I. Joe movie. As far as sequels based on Hasbro films go, you can rest assured that this isn’t the G.I. Joe equivalent of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. And that’s worth a hearty “hooah!” 

SUMMARY: Despite getting its release date pushed back, this sequel’s thrills and sheer escapist entertainment value, plus the fact that it’s not as dumb as the first go-round, make it worth getting excited about.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong 

A Good Day to Die Hard

For F*** Magazine

A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD

Director:	John Moore
Cast:	Jai Courtney, Bruce Willis
Genre:	Action, Thriller
Run Time:	98 mins
Opens:	7 February 2013
Rating:	PG13 (Violence & Some Coarse Language)

Some of you out there may remember the 1951 film An American in Paris, or even the George Gershwin composition that inspired it. Well, here we have An American in Moscow; the American in question being none other than John McClane, possibly the most iconic character Bruce Willis has played.

In this, the fifth instalment in the Die Hard franchise, McClane hears of his son John “Jack” McClane Jr. (Courtney) getting into trouble in Moscow and being thrown into jail, so he flies over to look into the situation and bring his son home. What he doesn’t know is that Jack is an undercover CIA agent caught in the middle of a potential crisis, and the older McClane’s presence throws a spanner in the works, much to the chagrin of his estranged son. They are soon drawn into a terrorist plot involving Russian defence minister Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov) and his former partner Komarov (Koch), whom he has taken as a political prisoner. Then there’s the small matter of a stockpile of weapons-grade uranium hidden away at Chernobyl.

The original Die Hard, from way back in 1988, has become something of a landmark among action films and is generally revered by genre aficionados. It became the basis of a successful franchise that has brought us to this place – this, unfortunately enough, very disappointing place. Some felt the fourth film didn’t live up to the legacy, but this reviewer found it quite entertaining.

Alas, that’s not the case with A Good Day to Die Hard. It seems that all of the creativity and innovation of the series has been sucked dry, and what we’re left with is a generic action flick with Bruce Willis dropped into the middle of it. At the hands of director John Moore of Max Payne infamy, the film becomes a messy collision of shaky-cam shots, quick, choppy editing and action scenes that are difficult to follow. There isn’t any of that old-school action movie feel that a Die Hard film should possess, that’s been replaced with a stale, production-line flavour.

This reviewer was actually really looking forward to this film and hoping to enjoy it. There’s potential here: setting the film in Moscow means that New York City cop John McClane gets to be a fish out of water, and having his son be a CIA agent better-equipped than he is, making him the one out of his depth, could have turned out intriguingly as well. However, the film doesn’t quite take advantage of its Russian setting, and having the climax take place at the abandoned Chernobyl power plant is rather on the nose, and even then the locale doesn’t feel sufficiently distinct. 

Giving an ageing action hero a son as his sidekick is not a new idea – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did it to not much success. However, Jack McClane turns out to be a typical contemporary action hero, Australian actor Jai Courtney giving off Sam Worthington vibes. There’s just nothing that defines him as John McClane’s son, and while there are some fun father-son moments and there’s a decent dynamic between the two, their relationship is paper-thin and far from central to the story, which should be the case. At least Courtney doesn’t come off as annoying.

Well, since it’s an action movie first and foremost, how are the action scenes? As mentioned earlier, the constantly shuddering camera makes the action sequences border on the incomprehensible, and a lot of them are rather messily staged. It’s not all bad though: there’s an elaborate car chase early in the film which features lots of high-impact collisions and various automobiles being bashed off the street and some fun stuff with a heavy-duty Mil Mi-26 helicopter, but in the end it doesn’t add up to enough visually. And also remember the complaints that the fourth movie made McClane seem like a superhero? Well, the father-and-so duo take insane amounts of punishment here, it’s nothing short of a miracle that they didn’t emerge utterly pulverised.

The villains aren’t memorable at all, and falling back on the “Russians-with-nukes” story device without putting a new spin on it or wrapping it in anything more interesting, the way Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol did, is tired and lazy. Screenwriter Skip Woods manages to make what should be a straightforward action flick confusing to sit through. Bruce Willis could sleepwalk through one of these movies, and at times it seems like he almost does. But it’s still nice to hear John McClane crack wise and see him throw a good punch or two – too bad he doesn’t have a beat-down with any of the main villains.

And to top it all off, it seems that here in Singapore, the F-bombs are muted out in order for the film to get a PG-13 rating, which is abrupt and distracting. It also means the hero’s memorable catchphrase is completely mangled, and that's even worse than it getting cut off by a gunshot as in the theatrical cut of the fourth movie.

SUMMARY: John McClane and his son have a very disappointing day out.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Looper

 For F*** Magazine, Singapore

LOOPER

Director:	Rian Johnson
Cast:	Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt
Genre:	Action, Thriller
Run Time:	118 mins
Opens:	11 October 2012

There’s no doubt about it: time travel has been something that’s fascinated the public consciousness for quite a while now. From H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine to Back to the Future to The Time-Traveller’s Wife, it seems authors and filmmakers have tapped into mankind’s almost primal desire to transcend the boundaries of time. It could be compared to mankind’s almost primal desire to fly. But while we’ve kinda achieved flight by way of heavier-than-air flying machines, time travel is still something that is quite elusive, to say the least.

Writer-director Rian Johnson’s film Looper offers an interesting twist on things: the ‘Loopers’ of the title are specialised assassins who take care of the trash of the future, by executing those sent back in time by criminal syndicates for a clean, untraceable disposal. Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is one such Looper, living the high life working his fairly uncomplicated job. However, every Looper must eventually ‘close the loop’ – i.e. kill the future version of themselves sent back in time, effectively tying up any loose ends for the crime syndicates. However, Joe’s future self (Willis) won’t go out without a fight, and evades execution. The younger Joe seeks refuge at a farm owned by redneck single mother Sara (Blunt), and just as he figures out how to deal with future-Joe, future-Joe sees the opportunity to right a few wrongs now that he’s in the past, and both must confront each other - even if it means tearing apart the fabric of time itself.



Looper is not your grandfather’s time-travel movie. Johnson has crafted a very intelligent, highly-engaging picture. He quickly establishes the high-concept premise and the story never gets swallowed up in its complexities. There’s a scene where future-Joe meets Joe in a diner, and says that if he attempted to explain the mechanics of time-travel, they’d end up sitting there for hours “making diagrams with straws”. Johnson makes sure he doesn’t end up doing that himself, instead spinning a very human and surprisingly poignant yarn with the science-fiction element as a backdrop. The picture is stylish but never flashy, and Johnson keeps a firm hold on his narrative even as it branches out into “possible eventualities” and alternate futures. Our attention is captured by the intricate plot, so much so that we never stop to question the metaphysical technicalities of it all, and that is very much to Johnson’s credit.

This film re-teams Johnson with the star of his earlier film Brick, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. So, does he make for a decent Junior Bruce Willis? Yes. Although the prosthetic makeup designed by Kazuhiro Tsuji can start off looking a mite goofy, it’s easy to get past that and the actor does a marvellous job emulating Willis’ strained vocal affectations. There was a time when Bruce Willis could have been considered sexy, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal seems to hearken back to those days. He puts across the moral and emotional toll being a Looper takes on Joe very well without doing too much, and he shares crackling chemistry with Willis himself.


As the older Joe, Willis is really good and actively lends his action hero credibility to the part, without his ‘icon’ status overshadowing the rest of the film. This movie doesn’t succumb to the cliché of having the older version of the character act as a mentor to his younger self and show him the ropes; rather both versions of Joe are almost constantly at each other’s throats and Willis is bitter and aggressive as the older one. What’s quite amusing is how quickly both Joes get over the absurdity of it all, staying focused on their respective missions as the other Loopers are sent to hunt them down (led by a rather intimidating Jeff Daniels).

When one thinks ‘redneck single mother’, English Rose Emily Blunt isn’t the name that immediately springs to mind, but she does a fantastic job as Sara, Southern accent and all. The character is a tough chick that isn’t your stereotypical tough chick; she’s just looking out for her son and making a living on the farm. The subplot which focuses on her character is intriguing to say the least. About halfway through, Looper becomes a completely different film, and while this makes sense in retrospect, it can come off as jarring and abrupt to some. This is one aspect of the film we are desperate not to spoil; the twists and revelations are just incredible. We’ll give you one hint – it’s a little “X-Men”. There are themes of predestination (a little akin to The Adjustment Bureau, also starring Emily Blunt) and sacrifice, and by the film’s end it’s turned from a head-spinning sci-fi action thriller to a poignant, moving drama – and yet doesn’t feel too disjointed.

We moviegoers often complain that Hollywood seems to have well and truly lost its creativity and is content in churning out production line cash-ins, banking on the names of franchises by way of sequels and remakes. Looper is a blunderbusser blast in the face to all of that. Here is a heady, intelligently-made science fiction film that true aficionados of the genre will want to take in, layering emotion, thrills and philosophy one on top of the other. It may not be immediately accessible and it will take a bit of effort to make sense of, but audiences will be amply rewarded.

SUMMARY: A refreshingly original, captivating sci-fi action thriller, this is one loop you want to keep yourself in even if it means working a little for it.

RATING: 4 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

The Expendables 2

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

56Movie Review                                                                                                                     15/8/12

THE EXPENDABLES 2

2012

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth, Yu Nan, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris

Directed by: Simon West

            Slowly but surely, Hollywood seems to be learning the power of nostalgia, the appeal of the ‘George Lucas Throwback’ over stale production line multiplex fodder. Just as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films were homages to the science fiction and pulp adventures of yore on which Lucas was raised, so are several recent releases. Super 8 was a love letter to the likes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goonies and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Rock of Ages embraced the kitsch and exuberance of musical films such as Grease and Footloose. And, of course, The Expendables was a macho salute to 80s-early 90s action flicks such as the Rambo movies, Commando, Hard Target and their ilk. While many were left somewhat unimpressed, it definitely left a taste for more of the same old-school wham bang fun, and opened to door to a sequel and the hope that more somewhat-forgotten action icons would be back to join Stallone’s motley crew.

            The boys are back in town: team leader Barney Ross (Stallone), knife-loving tough Brit sidekick Lee Christmas (Statham), expert martial artist Yin Yang (Li), Gunner Jensen, the brutish former traitor made good (Lundgren), heavy munitions specialist Hale Caesar (Crews) and demolitions guru Toll Road (Couture). They are joined by Billy the Kid (Hemsworth), a fresh-faced ex-military sniper whom Barney has taken a shine to,  as well as Chinese agent Maggie Chan (Yu), on loan to the crew by their CIA employer Mr Church (Willis). They’re pitted against a treacherous rival mercenary leader with the aptronym Jean Vilain (Van Damme), keen to get his hands on a long-forgotten stockpile of pure plutonium rods. Thankfully the Expendables have allies “Lone Wolf” Booker (Norris) and Trench (Schwarzenegger) to get them out of the occasional jam.

           This film is something of an improvement over the first, which was more a proof-of-concept than anything else. It was Stallone telling audiences “hey, I still have the clout to pull all my old pals together”, but it really wasn’t a lot more beyond that. Here, there are more explosive action sequences, more banter and bickering amongst the team and more enemy soldiers to splatter with high-caliber rounds. Directing duties have been passed from Sylvester Stallone to Simon West of Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider fame. The guy clearly knows his way around an action scene, and these are generally quite a hoot to watch. The opening sequence which has the team blasting their way into an enemy stronghold in Nepal on an assignment to rescue a kidnapped Chinese billionaire sets the tone pretty well, with high speed chases, huge fireballs and flying bullets galore.

            However, films like these ultimately do not lend themselves well to plots or storylines beyond the most rudimentary, and it is made amply clear that the narrative is not of primary concern. It’s almost painfully straightforward in the way it’s told, with Jean Vilain’s motivations typical of baddies in genre pictures. His atrocities towards a mining village are shown and there’s chatter about the impact the weaponising of that much plutonium will have, but somehow the threat doesn’t take root, the stakes and magnitude of the danger never truly felt. There’s some amusing back-and-forth between the guys and their love-hate-love relationship is a nice undercurrent, but some one-liners do feel awfully forced – at one point, Schwarzenegger and Willis reference The Terminator, Die Hard and Rambo all within ten seconds. Eventually, the nostalgia-tinted goggles need to come off, and then it’s evident that while this is a good film, it is fairly unremarkable beyond its action hero clout.

            This brings us to the ensemble cast. Stallone and everyone else returning  from the first film is only more enjoyable to watch, Lundgren in particular – although Gunner betrayed the team in the first film, all seems to be forgiven and he is made out to be the hulking dunderhead, whose secret past involves getting a degree in chemical engineering from MIT on a Fulbright scholarship and becoming a bouncer, mirroring Lundgren’s own real-life experiences (he’s a graduate in chemical engineering from Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology and Australia’s University of Sydney who became a model, bouncer and later bodyguard to singer/actress Grace Jones).

 It is great to see Jean-Claude Van Damme back on the big screen and it’s somehow even more satisfying to see him as the scenery-chewing baddie that our heroes have to deal with, and adding to the evilness is martial artist Scott Adkins as Vilain’s ruthless lieutenant. The film has lots of fun with its upgraded cameos from Willis and Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris’ appearances are sure to get many excited, the fact that he was pushing for a PG-13 rating in place of the more fitting R notwithstanding. The film seems half clued-in on the fact the internet memes of Norris’ superhuman prowess were probably intended to be half-ironic, and Norris as Booker (a nod to his character of the same name in Good Guys Wear Black) gets to recount one such tale, involving a king cobra. Thankfully, it’s not too overplayed.

            Newcomers Liam Hemsworth and Yu Nan made everyone at least a little wary, and rest assured that Hemsworth’s role is considerably smaller than the promotional material makes it out to be, and he is nowhere as out-of-place among the action movie stalwarts as he could have felt, his Billy the Kid injecting a sense of tenderness to the proceedings, someone Barney sees almost as a surrogate son. However, Yu Nan fares much worse. She is proficient in the English language, having appeared in Speed Racer several years prior and Dolph Lundgren’s own low-budget action flick Diamond Dogs, but the inclusion of her character just seems so clumsy and crowbarred-in. She comes off as a little too smug for her own good and seems even less skilled as an actor than some of her action hero costars, and that’s saying something. If the filmmakers wanted a Chinese character in the bulk of the film, they should have increased Jet Li’s part; he merely appears for the opening and then is missing-in-action for the rest of the movie. That’s a crying shame given how cool his brutal hand-to-hand combat scene is. They also missed the opportunity to have a truly memorable female member of the team – surely the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton or Michelle Yeoh would have been better fits, no?

            At any rate, if you’re a genre fan, you’ll find plenty in The Expendables 2 to like. It’s a trip down memory lane fuelled by bravado, octane and lead, and fulfills its purpose of being a throwback to the glory days of its stars better than the first one did. It’s just that kind of movie, intellectually featherweight, brawny entertainment, only packaged better and presented slicker. It’s a bit of a shame that all this was at the expense of a meatier, more satisfying story, though.

SUMMARY: It’s the guys you love, back and kicking more behind than ever - while it’s a notch or two up from its predecessor, there’s still the feeling that the best men for the job could have been a little better at it.

RATING: 3.5 OUT OF 5 STARS

Jedd Jong