Al's Omniflick: The Expendables 3

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

The Expendables 3

**Spoiler Alert--wait a minute, is this really necessary, what exactly will I spoil?**

Director: Patrick Hughes/Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Kelsey Grammer, Terry Crews, Victor Ortiz, Ronda Rousey, Kellan Lutz and anyone who happened to visit the studio during filming

I was thinking of creating a separate post for the cast list but oh well. I seriously thought about skipping The Expendables 3 because I had already invested enough time and money in the first two movies, which were mildly fun but very disposable. But I reconsidered; after all, I managed to see all the Harry Potter movies in theaters and perplexed myself by doing the same with the Twilight series, so why not the Expendables?

There is something about the movie that renders it impervious to any criticism. It's inherently dumb and all involved are well aware it's a farce so how can one possibly pan it? That said, I can say I didn't come to bury it but I also won't recommend the movie unless one's Verizon Fios is on the fritz, you have nothing to read, your iPad has lost its charge, Seven Samurai can't be found on any movie channel, you're too lazy to play frisbee at the park (do people still do that?), you finished digging a trench for a sprinkler system, or it's just too early to turn in. Then maybe I'd recommend The Expendables 3, but only at matinee prices.

The Expendables 3 begins with a daring rescue by the core members of the Expendable team: Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone), Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Caesar (Terry Crews) and Toll Road (Randy Couture) as they break into a maximum security prison in some third world country to rescue a fellow member who has been incarcerated for 7 years. The feat is accomplished in true Expendables fashion by commandeering a train and crashing through the doors of a concrete fortress. The liberated member is Doc (Wesley Snipes); a former Expendables medic and like Lee, a bad-ass knife-wielder.

The team is hired by a government suit named Drummer (Harrison Ford) for a mission involving a Somali port, but are thwarted by a former associate of Ross' named Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), who is now an arms dealer operating outside the purview of international law. Stonebanks manages to escape but not before wounding Caesar by sniping at him from a helicopter--an act meant to humiliate Ross.

Irked by Ross' failed mission, Drummer offers him a redemptive opportunity to lead a mission to capture Stonebanks, who is holed up in a third world despot's stronghold somewhere on the Asian continent.

Feeling his group has aged beyond optimum functionality and afraid to imperil their lives in another mission, Ross dismisses his group. They naturally reject his edict but Ross is adamant, brooking no objections.

While his former unit lick their emotional wounds, Ross searches for a new group; assisted by a whizbang recruiter named Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer). The new unit comes with a specific array of skills but also a she-tough named Luna (MMA Fighter Ronda Rousey). The youngsters manage to get themselves captured by Stonebanks and his client's army in a rubble-strewn, cold war-esque complex. Stonebanks then goads Ross into rescuing the unit.

The rest of the story is hardly mysterious. You know Christmas, Doc, Jensen, and Road will find a way to re-join Ross, which will provide them a means to show their testosteronic (my word) virility. And of course everyone in the cast will have his allotted time onscreen.

You might be delusional if you think E3 offers any narrative surprises. Seeing the film is like a visit to McDonald's--one expects nothing but the traditional fare. It would be unseemly to complain about the absence of McFoie Gras in the chain's gustatory offerings. The same can be said for E3. What you see and titter at in the first film is precisely what fatigues your eyes in the third, so why expect more?

Sure, the movie is ferociously meat-headed and only a smidgen less cartoonish than a computer game, but with its phonebook cast and bloodless mayhem (I think I saw more people bleed in The Hundred-Foot Journey), it all went down like a bag of Cheetos. At least The Expendables 3 has a sense of humor, which prevented its fall into the abyss of self-serious tedium.

Does the franchise have one more bullet in its chamber? Is Expendables 4 a possibility? If so, I would like the producers to cast some of the few people on the planet who haven't appeared in the franchise. I would like to see Judy Dench play a blood-thirsty MI6 operative with demolition expertise who returns from Ross' past to liquidate him after steamy hot-tub sex. Maybe Julie Andrews and Dame Maggie Smith could make appearances too...in the hot-tub.
That's all.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.