The Expendables 2

When the new recruit to the rag-tag group of buffed up mercenaries presumably called “The Expendables” is asked why he left the military to join, he relays a story about being stuck for three hours in a firefight in Afghanistan.  He called for aerial support but his superiors wouldn’t allow it for fear of harming the locals.  Several of his fellow soldiers died “for nothing”, and to top it all off, his superiors killed the stray dog he had adopted.  This fear of the military institution and the lionization of the fighting man is reminiscent of classic, Reagan-era Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II, and indeed there’s nothing about The Expendables 2 that doesn’t just wish it was living in those halcyon days of pumped up heroes righteously killing en masse to hold up the classical values of American masculinity.