Mercenaries Review

If you and your mates rented a camera and the contents of an army surplus store, you could hardly fail to improvise a better grunts-with-guns flick than this humdrum effort, which has escaped its direct-to-petrol-station destiny thanks to the dazzling combined star power of chirpy Cockney Blackwood and Titanic villain Zane (sporting one of Bruce Willis’ discarded hair pieces). It’s not so much The Expendables as The Unemployables. After a military coup in Bosnia the President sends in a squad of soldiers, armed with digital explosions and dangerous accents, to rescue the US ambassador. The combat scenes are authentic, but for all the shooting and scowling, it’s a pretty dull, bloodless and inconsequential affair.