Most outlets seems to be highly and hotly anticipating Sylvester Stallone’s upcoming dirty dozen-like project, “The Expendables” about a team of mercenaries who head to South America on a mission to overthrow a dictator (one must presume it’s a suicide mission of sorts and this is their second lease on life… if they survive, naturally).
The project stars a motley crue who’s who of action stars that are washed up (Dolph Lundgren), thriving (Jason Statham) and idling (Jet Li) (guys where’s Michael Biehn? Now there’s a great ’80s action star). So yeah, everyone high fives with irony, clinks there tallboys together and says, “this project rules!” (Nostalgia fetishizing has been known to cut off circulation to the brain), but our initial concern is that none of these could act their way out of a paper bag besides Statham.
Maybe acting is besides the point here, but the cast keeps getting better and better (Sandra Bullock aside, though that’s apparently not happening either). Forrest Whitaker is in talks to play a CIA liaison to the group and and it looks like Mickey Rourke will play the part of a villain if he isn’t low-balled up the ass ala Marvel.
We freely admit we missed this recent (though not widely reported) rumor that Sir Ben Kingsley may star in the film, and man if that happens, then we’re fully interested. Presumably he would play the South American dictator, since the British actor seems to have an uncanny knack for morphing into different ethnicities effortlessly. Stallone was recently caught on camera confirming Whitaker’s involvement and said, “I think we’re gonna get Ben Kingsley too.”
Everyone remembers and loves how fierce Kinsgley was in “Sexy Beast” so bringing this thespian on board would certainly be the missing piece of the puzzle. Recent pre-production pics of Stallone have been floating around the Internet and dude looks jacked (not to mention flush with crazy-ass tattoos). With better actors hopefully coming on board, we must admit, our cynicism about this B-action movie is starting to slowly melt away.