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Barney Ross is the leader of a band of for-hire mercenaries called the Expendables. The crew has skills in weapons, vehicles, unarmed combat, and wearing really nice watches.
The Films: The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012), The Expendables 3 (2014)
The first of the films introduces us to Barney Ross and his band of Expendables. To most the cast rounding out the team will be familiar: it’s a who’s who of action stars of the past 20 years. Names like Sylvester Stalone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris and Arnold Schwarzenegger will immediately be recognizable to action movie fans. Putting them all in one place means you had better strap yourself in, sit back and enjoy the ride.
In the first film the crew of the Expendables are hired by a mysterious Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) to eliminate a Latin dictator for the sum of 5 million dollars. Ross and his partner, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), travel to meet their local contact and find out a bit more about their target. After arriving and meeting the contact, Sandra, they learn she is the daughter of General Garza, their intended target. An encounter with local military forces Ross and Christmas to exit the island leaving Sandra behind. The crew discovers the mysterious Mr. Church is actually a CIA agent and their real target is a rouge CIA agent, Munroe, who is backing General Garza. The team returns to the island to stop Garza and Monroe and save Sandra. Garza is eliminated by Munroe who in the end is eliminated by Ross and Christmas. Rather than keep the payment for their mission, they give the money to Sandra to rebuild and restore the city.
The second film again finds the Expendables approached by Mr. Church, this time to retrieve an item from a downed plane in the former Soviet Union. Church insists one of his team, Maggie, accompany the team to make sure Ross finds and returns the item. After the team successfully locates the plane and the objective they are ambushed by Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and his men. Vilain demands the cargo and ends up killing one of the newer Expendables in the process of obtaining the item. Ross and the Expendables learn the item they had was a map showing the location of a hidden Russian plutonium storage mine. Knowing they cannot let that information remain in the wrong hands the team tracks down Vilain and his men who have enslaved a village to work in the mine. Of course, the mercenaries are able to stop Vilain and his crew as well as free the people from enslavement.
The third film should be in the same vein as the first two of the films, and is set to be released in 2014.
The Watches: Panerai Luminor Regatta Rattrapante PAM332, Panerai Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Automatic Bronzo PAM382, Richard Mille RM 032 Ti
The Expendables may be mercenaries, but they wear watches like millionaires. In the first film Stalone’s charter, Barney Ross sports a Panerai Luminor 1950 Regatta Rattrapante chronograph reference PAM332. The watch was produced in 2009 and has a limited run of 500 pieces. The watch features a split seconds chronograph, 2mm thick sapphire crystal, 44mm case and 42mm power reserve. The PAM332 has a list price of $21,900.00 USD. For a guy taking on jobs that pay $5,000,000 I guess it is not a stretch that Barney Ross might own an expensive watch such as the PAM332; of course the real reason for Stalone’s character wearing this time piece is that Stalone is a huge Panerai fan. That fact leads us to the watches of the next film.
In The Expendables 2 the entire cast of the crew joins Stalone in wearing Panerai, this time the Luminor Submersible 1950 Bronzo, reference PAM382. The watch features a 47mm bronze case and green dial, 4mm thick sapphire crystal and began its production run in 2011 limited to 1,000 pieces. The list price for this watch was $11,600 although the cast did not have to pay for theirs: Stalone provided each of the members of the Expendables with one of these awesome watches. Seems like a great guy to work with, if you ask me.
Although the third film is not due to be released for some time we already know at least what watch Stalone will be wearing in the film. If you thought Panerai again, sorry but you are wrong. This time Stalone has been spotted wearing a Richard Mille RM 032 in titanium. This beast of a watch comes in at 50mm in diameter and nearly 18mm tall. It has a power reserve of around 50 hours, a running indicator at 3 o’clock that shows the movement is working (rather than a sub-seconds dial) and a flyback chronograph. This beast of a piece carries a price tag of $125,000; quite a step up from the Panerai of the first film. We will have to wait to see what other watches make it into the third installment, but I would not be surprised to see some other big names show up.
by James Enloe
for more watches on the screen, check out James’ site: Watches in Movies
