Killer Elite (2011)

Jason Statham's husky voice, Clive Owen's glorious 'tache and Robert 'God' De Niro cannot save this mess of a film. You expect to see an Expendables-lite action-fest where Stath goes against the 'tache, taking DeNiro's shaggy beard along the way, instead you get a trailer that runs just short of 2.5 hours. It refuses to slow down to reflect on a scene, a quip, or a plot twist. There are plenty of those, but the shambolic editing and an inability to tell a decent story quickly exhaust one's patience. This is by far the worst film I have seen all year.

The Mechanic (2011)

The Mechanic is a remake of a 1970s Charles Bronson flick, and it’s released in January – expectations should be tempered. But it also offers Jason Statham, continuing his work as the most reliable tough guy of his era, and Ben Foster, as the most reliable dangerously off-kilter nut job. Both men excel in a limited but useful niche, and The Mechanic is a familiar stomping ground.

The Expendables (2010)

That. Was. Awesome.

Filing out of the theater at 2am in a crowd full of adrenaline-fueled action movie junkies, that was all I could think about what I’d just seen, and pretty much all I was hearing from the movie-goers around me. The Expendables is the perfect midnight movie, the kind of flick that’s so loaded with action, so ridiculously over-the-top, so smoothly paced and fun that it literally won’t let you be tired. This isn’t an epic blockbuster or a groundbreaking mind-bender. This is action, straight no chaser. And it is just… awesome.