On the couch

Peter Madden reviews The Expendables and The Night Chronicles: Devil.

The Expendables
***
Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone; Jason Statham; Jet Li; Dolph Lundgren; Steve Austin

The Night Chronicles: Devil
****
Directed by: John Erick Dowdle
Starring: Chris Messina; Bojana Novakovic; Bokeem Woodbine; Logan Marshall-Green

For all the obvious action-nostalgia cred that Sylvester Stallone and the cast of The Expendables bring to the film, one of the most anticipated films of the last year never quite satisfies its audience the way you’d want it to.
Not that Sly’s guns‘n’grunt-fest isn’t at least a partially full barrel of laughs but for a flick featuring a wishlist of ’80s action movie stars plus a few from the ’90s thrown in for good measure, directed by one of the giants of the genre with a proven grasp of how to thrill an audience, you expect to feel slightly more… exhilarated by its conclusion.
The story is fine action film fare – that is to say light on details, logic or sense and heavy on disposable henchmen, convenient twists and cartoonish bad guys. The Expendables, a crack squad of mercenaries with more miles on the clock than Keith Richards’ liver, sign up for the job liberating a small, made-up South American nation from a evil despot with plans to sell off the country to a former CIA agent, who wants to turn it into a giant, military-controlled cocaine state.
There’s a bit more to it but the Cliffs notes would break it down as: “Expendables: good; Eric Roberts and Stone Cold Steve Austin: bad; Dolph Lundgren: crazy but potentially redeemable (his character that is. Despite limited screen time, the actor  himself is one of the best things in the film); honourable mention for Mickey Rourke, who seems to have suffered no lasting damage from his Roosheen accent in Iron Man 2”.
So the crew saddle up for yet another suicide mission and proceed to fall off the action movie stereotype tree and bang their holsters on every branch on the way down.
Which is fine for a while. Part of the fun of schlocky action movies is the predictability. But in The Expendables you expect the bar to be set a bit higher than normal and it just doesn’t live up to its hype.
The final battle scene is an unfortunately good example. All the main characters get involved in a variety of different (undoubtedly painstakingly choreographed) rucks but, because the bloody camera keeps chopping and changing between them, you never get a chance to work out who’s doing what to whom, let alone root for your preferred hero as he doles out a dose of bad guy bashing. It’s a case of too many heroes spoiling the broth. Or in this case, film.
In the end The Expendables just isn’t memorable. Which seems like a massive waste given the talent available both in front of and behind the camera.
So obviously there’ll be a sequel announced before the end of this senten…
From overblown flicks that disappoint to small ones punching far above their weight.
There’s a lot to be said for small but well formed flicks like Devil. Made for $10m and shot in such a way as to use its limited number of sets as a way to ramp up paranoia, it has a lot more going for it than many of the more bloated and CG-heavy action thrillers and horror films that have been clogging up cinemas and video store shelves in the last few years.
Released under the banner of The Night Chronicles, a planned series of horror vignettes shepherded onto the screen by The Sixth Sense director, M Night Shyamalan, Devil is a claustrophobic affair where five strangers who are trapped in a lift are seemingly being hunted by the Devil and killed one by one.
Watching in on the gradual slaughter are two rent-a-cops and a real policeman who can see, but can’t hear, what’s going on in the elevator car.
Obviously, as the bodycount rises and the recriminations start to fly, the cop on the outside starts to dig up nasty little secrets about all the elevator occupants. This rational bit of sleuthing runs parallel to the Hispanic rent-a-cop, who grows increasingly hysterical as the story unfolds as his granny told him stories about The Devil’s Meeting and how Old Nick likes to drop in on the mortal coil from time to time and leave a trail of destruction in his wake.
It’s all satisfyingly unsettling stuff with a good cast and sparingly, but effectively used, visual effects. It’s also good to see a film that doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is – in this case a creepy little movie. Which comes as a welcome respite from any of the last few films that have born the Shyamalan taint. Perhaps M Night should stick to his producing/story generation. It’s worked out well for him so far.