Turgid dialogue, that allows aged men to liberally piss testosterone over each other, links impressive explosions to form a story that resembles a mangled abortion shat out of the bloated corpse of the eighties with an excellent all-out scrap at the end.
I'd like to the thank the Academy for fooling Stallone into thinking he can write. Not a good film at all, but some enjoyable stuff - Dolph Lundgren having a whale of a time; Eric Roberts being cool; Jason Stetham being a pro; hat guy from Dexter painting his goons' faces; platoons of said goons being mown down. All that blood and gore made me think - is this insanse and cartoonish, or am I just used to fake bloodless hollywood shoot-outs? Is this really what happens? Only one way to find out...
ReplyDeleteNot so much a story as a series of vignettes about absurdly macho men who aren't so much characters as pairings of characteristics: Wrestling n therapy guy; knives n girlfriend guy etc... topped with an extended fighty-fighty blowy-uppy set piece that appears to impart very little information as to why, exactly, all these people did the stuff they did. Obviously too high-brow for me: Over my head.
ReplyDeleteI downloaded a DVD rip of this that was encoded badly so the sound effects and music were at the correct volume (let's say a volume of 10), while the dialogue track was quiet (about 5 in comparison). As everyone in this is a "MAN" they have to talk in that Jack Bauer gruff loud whisper and so I couldn't understand 80% of the dialogue most of the actors uttered and I don't have a single clue of anything Stallone said. Plus it was also a Russian rip so the scenes in Spanish were subtitled in Russian.
ReplyDeleteI think this was a benefit as the story was easy enough to follow (Stallone's crew are the good guys, Eric Roberts crew are the bad guys fucking over a small country) and I couldn't hear any of the dialogue so all I could make head nor tail of was the stupid, fun action sequences which were very satisfying.
Despite the sheer stupidity of everything that unfolds the most retarded was being asked to believe that Dolph Lundgren could kick Jet Li's ass quite effortlessly.
Better that The Losers, not as good as The A-Team.