Bill O'Reilly's straw-man argument: Of course The Expendables is (slightly) patriotic, but it's not 'NATIONALISTIC'. Altough he has one good point...

It's a common tactic brandished on the Right, and occasionally used by the Left, to create a straw-man argument and then bring on someone to validate or combat said viewpoint. Bill O'Reilly himself has been famous for his annual 'War on Christmas' series that seems to crop up every December. I know of no one who has discussed The Expendables in anything but the broadest social terms (it has no real agenda other than to entertain and make money), and certainly not a single critic has vilified Stallone for the film's content aside from its worth as an action drama. The film is subtly patriotic, but it's not NATIONALISTIC, which is what O'Reilly is defending it against. For what it's worth, the film's villain is an American imperialist tycoon, and the bad guys use water-boarding to torture a damsel in distress, and righteous Americans do battle to put a stop to it. In other words, heroic Americans do battle with evil Americans and save an indigenous populace for outside invaders because they basically want to do a 'mitzvah' for once in their greedy, soulless lives (yes, it's the same broad idea as The Wild Bunch).