‘Mutiny’ Review: The One Good Scene In ‘Expendables 4’ Is Now The Whole Film

- 95 minutes
- Rated R (for… uh… take a wild guess)
- Directed by Jean-François Richet
- Written by Lindsay Michel and J. P. Davis
- Produced by Marc Butan and Jason Statham
- Starring Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller, Jason Wong, Arnas Fedaravicius and Adrian Lester
- Cinematography by Brendan Galvin
- Edited by David Rosenbloom
- Music by Marcus Trump
- Production: MadRiver Pictures, Punch Palace Productions
- Opening August 21 via Lionsgate

Expendables 4 is not a good movie. Even aside from the commercial considerations (Expendables 3 bombed back in 2014), it was a grasping-at-straws attempt to continue a series that had no business staying on life support. However, within its half-assed story about the elder statesmen of 1980s and 1990s action cinema avenging the death of their beloved leader (Sylvester Stallone), there is one protracted sequence that was almost worth the price of admission. It’s when the proverbial Riker/Spock of the outfit (Jason Statham) sneaks into an enemy vessel and slaughters all of the onboard bad guys in gleeful action movie fashion. One scene cannot redeem an unremarkable movie, but Mutiny tries a different approach. Simply put, it takes the “Statham on a shipping boat delivering righteous vengeance” set piece and makes that the movie. There are worse ideas.