There was a movie in the '60s called "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Woody Strode and Robert Ryan as the good guys, Claudia Cardinale as the squeeze, and Jack Palance as the head of the Mexican Bandidoes. Palance was supposed to be the baddy but it turned out it was the guy who hired the good guys. It seemed to me that back in that era, there were already enough ensemble cast expendables-type pictures.