JAMAICANS cheered heaviest during the ‘black parts’ of the Expendables, a Hollywood film about seven US-based mercenaries who kill the entire army of a country.

The audience loved when a black Somali pirate played by Senyo Amoaku, demanded that ransom be increased from US$3 million to US$5 million. His accent sounded surprisingly Jamaican at that moment. It resulted in some persons at the Carib cinema on Friday applauding his business acumen. The pirate’s request was met with gunfire and his body ripped in half.

Later, the audience cheered heavily when Hale Caesar (played by Terry Crews) gunned his way through scores of soldiers, their bodies forced into flight. The audience sounded every “boom boom boom” of his gun barrel . There was so much excitement that the actor’s subsequent words were lost in the cheers.

The film’s arguable racial stereotypes included Caesar as the muscular artillery black man, Yin Yang (Jet Li), the selfdescribed small Asian man demanding higher pay, the Hispanic dictator General Garza (David Zayas) and Somali pirates.

The plot involved the Expendables killing a rogue CIA agent and the entire army of the fictitious island of Vilena, off the coast of South America in order to save the army general’s daughter, Sandra (Gisele Itié) and redeem their conscience in the process. Interestingly, the film portrays the US as both the imperialist and as the liberator. The island’s sovereignty — “its freedom” according to Sandra — was initially usurped by the rogue CIA agent James Monroe (Eric Roberts) who funded her father’s puppet dictatorship; then freedom was restored by the US based Expendables.

“I can’t understand why she wouldn’t want to leave that place,” Ross, played by Sylvester Stallone, pondered to Tool played by Mickey Rourke.

Interestingly, none of the Expendables are killed in the film (not even the hard to remember ones). Ross got one shot, compared to about 1,000 Vilena soldiers killed. “These are obviously professionals,” stated Monroe following the initial Expendable attack.

The theme of mercy was, however, selectively administered. Ross actually spoke about the merits of mercy by physically reprimanding an Expendable, Gunnar (Dolph Lundgren) for attempting to hang a subdued Somali pirate. Then, when Gunnar went rogue, Ross actually spared Gunar’s life despite attempts to kill him and Yang. Yet mid-film Ross and Expendable Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) escaped by plane then U-turned for a second gunfight for no reason but to slaughter a group of Vilena soldiers unprovoked.

Regardless, the film is meant to be man’s movie in the same way other film’s are chick flicks. It was produced by Avi Lerner and directed by Sylvester Stallone who also wrote the screen play. The budget was reportedly US$82 million which financed the film locations including Brazil and big actor fees — think cameos by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.