By Jason Apuzzo. As many of you are aware, we’ve been highly critical of late of Sylvester Stallone’s new film The Expendables, which features an extremely nasty caricature of a CIA agent, as played by Eric Roberts. [See our thoughts on the film here and here.] Our criticism of the film in fact recently made The LA Times.
All of this is of note because in a recent interview Stallone did on Fox News with Bill O’Reilly on Thursday, August 19th, Stallone responds to unnamed critics who have taken him to task on his depiction of the CIA and of ostensible ‘imperialist’ American overreach overseas.
Since I’m not aware of any other film site that’s taken Stallone to task on these issues as we have, I will proceed under the assumption that he’s responding to Libertas – or has otherwise been made aware of our criticisms.
Watch the segment of the interview between 3:05 – 3:30 for Stallone’s remarks on this subject. His denials of our criticism are, unfortunately, difficult to square with what is actually depicted in his film – in which a druglord/ex-CIA operative collaborates with the brutal regime of a South American country in order to exploit that country’s cheap labor and resources.
One final note here: we like and respect Bill O’Reilly here at LFM. In fact, LFM’s own Govindini Murty has appeared as a guest on Mr. O’Reilly’s show twice. Unfortunately, however, Bill did not bother to actually see The Expendables before conducting this interview – something he admits at the outset. Had he actually seen the film, it’s unlikely he would have agreed with the characterization of the film by Stallone and others as being benignly ‘patriotic.’ It isn’t. The only flag Stallone waves in this film is his own.
Posted on August 21, 2010 at 11:56am.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mr. K, Libertas Film Mag. Libertas Film Mag said: Stallone Responds to Libertas? See: http://bit.ly/dtBv47 [...]
Jason..it looks like your nefarious plot to get Libertas free publicity almost worked! You’re Making Waves!
The odd thing here is that we’re ‘making waves’ by simply stating what’s in the film! I mean, it’s right there for everybody to see.
Stallone is being evasive on this point. He’s trying to have it both ways. I saw the film and it was clear what he was doing… He’s bashing the C.I.A. Officer O’Reilly should call him on the point.
Hell, Powder, Officer O’Reilly should at least see the film.
The point is that it didn’t have to be the CIA. There’s enough going on in South America, and in our own State Department that you didn’t need a lazy CIA plot device.
Look at Honduras, for example. Those people deposed a dictator-in-the-making through their constitution, and the Obama administration sided with the Marxists.
Oh my … talk about a situation for a bunch of “Expendables” to jump in and do what’s right, and help the people preserve their constitutional republic. And it’s not like it’s out of Stallone’s skill set to make a topical action pic … Rambo is a classic.
Bingo, Vince. You’ve stated the case perfectly. Case closed.