Jason Statham arrived at his forties in style, when Sylvester Stallone gave him the aging-action-star knighthood of a starring role in the ensemble action trilogy “The Expendables.” The actor would be dubbed “the last action hero” by various outlets, including Today and The Guardian, for years to come off the back of the films, and for good reason.
In starring alongside action hero dinosaurs like Dolph Lundgren, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mickey Rourke, the actor may have represented the final breath of a soon-to-be-extinct genre — an ’80s style action flick, done in earnest. Speaking to News Shopper about the “old fashioned” nature of the film, wherein “men are men and women are victims,” Statham admitted, “You could argue that [‘The Expendables’ is] slightly prehistoric.” Impressively, however, the action star remained keen to push the genre — and his career — forward without reinventing the wheel too much.
In 2011, for instance, Statham’s performance in the remake of Charles Bronson’s “The Mechanic” saw him able to step into the blood-smeared shoes of the sort of “guys’ guys” macho icons he grew up watching and adoring. But that same year, a role acting opposite Robert de Niro and Clive Owen in “The Killer Elite” gave him aspirations to up his game, and his persona — and to potentially elevate the genre in the process. “That’s the direction I really want to go in now,” he explained to NJ.com. “Thinking-man’s action, you know?”
