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MOVIE FEATURE

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ENCOUNTERING THE EXPENDABLES “I was still editing in Greece for a few months, and I was in the Hyatt and the entire production crew for Expendables 4 moved in,” Hughes fondly recalls. “Suddenly all these people come flooding in – and I'm still a kid in Disneyland – and all of a sudden I'm walking past 50 Cent. I was like, ‘You're kidding me! So I had to go and grab a little selfie with him. I was unashamed. I was like, 'Bro, I'm a massive fan, thanks.”

Torn from the same page as JohnWick and Man on Fire , The Enforcer is an unassuming action movie starring Antonio Banderas. First-time Aussie director Richard Hughes tells STACK how he landed the gig. Words Glenn Cochrane T he Enforcer ’s title character (played by Antonio Banderas) puts his career, and life, on the line to help a teenage girl FROM TRUCKING TO HOLLYWOOD

“I had a feeling something good was happening, because nothing good had

happened in over a year. And he says [down the phone], ‘Do you want to direct an action movie with Antonio Banderas? We're shooting in five weeks.’ “I was like, 'Ahhh, yeah, what's the script?’ And he sent it to me, and then I drove down to Melbourne that night. I had to make some changes to it. It was a cool script, but it was a little bit dated. It was written like fifteen years ago.” The original Enforcer script was written by Hollywood scribe W. Peter Iliff, who gave the world Point Break , Patriot Games and Varsity Blues , amongst others. “ Point Break , how big can you get?” Hughes says with astonishment when we ask about Iliff's involvement. “A titan! He sent me a lovely email saying that he wrote the screenplay 15 years ago and had been trying to get it up and going. He even said to me, ‘Man, I watched your short films online and I loved them.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is Peter Iliff!’ It was an absolute honour to take it off his hands.” Hughes also relished the thought of working with Antonio Banderas. “I did wonder what he would be like. I assumed everyone goes up to him saying, 'Desperado, Desperado,’ he laughs. “And when I had dinner with him he told me that they made Desperado on a budget of $300,000, and people who were shot in that movie were shot multiple times. They put wigs on them and used different angles. “So everyone's sort of been on the same journey, and it was great to hear that from him. But he's one of the kindest, nicest people in the industry that I've met. He's a class act and he puts so much passion into it. He also had a lot of patience with me, understanding that it was my first feature film.”

escape from his boss's nefarious cybersex traffic operation. It’s a highly stylised and pulse-pounding action-thriller from Millennium Media, the company responsible for hits like The Expendables , Rambo and The Hitman's Bodyguard , amongst others. Thanks to his older and more established brother, Patrick Hughes (director of The Expendables 3 and The Man fromToronto ), as well as building his reputation as a scriptwriter, Richard Hughes formed a relationship with the people at Millennium. Speaking with STACK over Zoom, he recalls the moment when his world changed.

“I was driving trucks just to pay the rent at that stage,” he recalls of the pandemic. “I had kept in contact with the studio head, Yariv Lerner, and he called me up one day. I was camping in Wye River and I got a message from him saying, ‘Hey, can you get to some reception?’ So I went onto the Lorne pier,” he laughs.

• The Enforcer is out on DVD on Nov 2

16 NOVEMBER 2022

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