The Losers

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Zaldana, Chris Evans, Jason Patric, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada, Holt McCallany

Synopsis:

The Losers, an elite Special Forces team lead by Colonel Clay (Morgan) is sent to Bolivia to help take out a local drug lord by providing ground support to a laser-guided missile. When they discover the target area contains a large group of children, they disobey orders to save them. However they are set-up and left for dead by the sinister Max, a super-spook who had engineered the mission to stop the druglord from testifying against him. Disavowed and considered dead, the group are aided by the mysterious and beautiful Aisha (Zaldana), who helps them get back to the US in order to kill Max – but can she be trusted?

Review:

The film trend for this year seems to be The Ensemble movie, where a team of heroes go on a mission. Later we’ll have the heavy hitters, The Expendables and The A-Team, but for now we have the mostly satisfying appetiser of The Losers, based on the Vertigo Comic of the same name.

A slick intro to the characters sets the scene and sensibility of the movie – this isn’t an attempt to portray anything remotely realistic, more a comic-book approach to reality. The action scenes are well shot, but heavily edited together. Although it’s all very stylishly done, none of the shootouts are allowed to flow (see Book of Eli for a textbook example of how it should be done).

The dynamics of the group are quite interesting: cut out of the military, the Losers are a little all at sea, uncomfortable with not having usual protocol to fall back on. Roque (Idris Elba) in particular is at odds with Clay’s plan of revenge, more than willing to cut his losses and disappear. Even though the individual members lack any real depth, the group as a whole almost act as one character and it’s quit easy to relate to them. Zoe Zaldana (Star Trek, Avatar) makes for a sultry femme fatale, whose motives and loyalties are kept in the dark for a good portion of the film.

The mission to take down Max is pretty exciting, including theft of an armoured truck by helicopter and a game of chicken between a bugatti motorcycle and a Lear Jet, and a nice bit of sniping by Cougar (Jaenada).

Unfortunately, The Losers are facing a very weak villain in the guise of Jason Patric as Max. You get the impression that Patric thought, “Oh, it’s a comic-book movie, so I’ll play it comic-book supervillain style”. As cartoonish as The Losers is as a film, it doesn’t feel like Max fits in the same universe and would be much better as a villain in GI JOE. Holt McCallany fares much better as Wade, Max’s main henchman.

The other thing that doesn’t work is the way it tries to make the computer hacking dramatic. Chris Evans’ character, Jensen, is constantly having to say things like “…interfacing with the relay….Now! (cue dramatic tap of the keyboard to emphasise the “now!”). firstly, no other member of the team is expected to give a running commentary of what he’s doing (Cougar: “Shooting people in the head from a long distance….Now!”). Secondly, he’s the only computer geek in the team – no one knows if what he’s doing is correct. It’s not as if someone is going to point out to him that he’s missed a step:

JENSEN: Interfacing with the relay…..now!

POOCH: Dude, did you remember to clone the UIP index card before interfacing?

JENSEN: ….dammit!

You’ll notice I know nothing about computer hacking terminology – and neither would the other Losers (probably). Jensen could probably spout any old rubbish as he tapped furiously at his laptop:

JENSEN: Flanging the micro-nutscape…now! (dramatic TAP!)...

Verdict:

Aside from a rubbish villain and some needless scripting, The Losers provides a lot of entertaining action and proves to be a decent appetiser while we await the Summer’s main courses.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)