Recent Release Reviewed: The Losers

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba, Chris Evans
Screenplay: Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, based on the comic by Andy Diggle and Jock
Director: Sylvain White

"That's right, bitches. I got a crossbow"

The Losers are an elite military unit. While on a mission in South America, they are betrayed by the mysterious Max (Jason Patric) and left for dead. Enter Aisha (Saldana), a femme fatale with an alluring proposition: She'll get them back into the States and help them find Max.

I'll admit it. I've got a weakness for well-orchestrated action films. I'll go on and on about Jim Jarmusch or Lars von Trier, but every now and then I'll get a craving for a Bad Boys, a Point Break, or a Con Air. And while The Losers might not be up there with the best of the guilty pleasures crowd, it's damn entertaining. And in the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I watched this shortly after The Limits of Control (review forthcoming), so perhaps I enjoyed it more than I might have normally.

Sure, it's basically plotless. There's a MacGuffin about Max trying to buy some sort of weapon that disintegrates matter....or something. But I didn't watch The Losers for that. I watched it for the cast, and the promise of quip-filled action scenes. And it did not disappoint on that score. Yes, it's the kind of movie in which the characters wisecrack while dodging bullets. And, you know what? I have no problem with that. In the minus column, it's violence is restrained thanks to the PG-13 rating. Our guys mostly use tranquilizer darts and over-elaborate schemes to get around the baddies. And hey, that's fine. It's only during the last stretch that you wish that White would cut loose a little as the bloodless explosions pile up.

However, this can't take away from the cast. Watchmen's Jeffrey Dean Morgan enjoys his first lead role as the gruff team commander Clay, Avatar's Zoe Saldana clearly has fun not having to deliver all her dialogue with po-faced sincerity, and Idris Elba is solid as Clay's second-in-command Roque. Columbus Short and Óscar Jaenada round out The Losers as the family man vehicles expert and taciturn sniper respectively. Best of the bunch, however, is Chris Evans as nerdy communications man Jensen. He gets the best lines and makes the most of them with a comic timing and enthusiasm that bodes very well for Scott Pilgrim. Also, he almost manages to pry Journey's Don't Stop Believin' from Glee's syrupy grasp.

When we're following The Losers, everything is entertaining and fine. Things do go off the rails a bit when the focus shifts to Max, the gloved villain. Jason Patric does a very good job, reminding us that he was supposed to have a comeback after Narc, but the fact is that the story, beyond "revenge", is very weak. There are some funny moments (a misunderstanding of a nod from Max means that a man is thrown off a roof rather than slapped), but we want to get back to our heroes.

The bottom line is that there's enough here to keep us entertained, and entertained well. There's also more than enough promise to make me hope for a sequel. It's always refreshing when the "funny quips" are actually funny, and the chemistry that the cast share is fantastic. The Losers isn't perfect, but it's damn good fun. If you think this sounds like the kind of film you'd enjoy, chances are you will.

7/10

Forthcoming Film Furore!: Dinner For Schmucks, The Losers, The A-Team, The Expendables, The Good Heart

OK, so we're running through a few films here, but with good reason. With Summer just around the corner, we're seeing a lot of trailers for big brainless summer movies. Three of the films we're showing you the trailers for are "team of badasses on a mission" movies: The Losers, The A-Team, and The Expendables.

But first, let's look at the trailer for Dinner for Schmucks. A remake of a French film, Dinner for Schmucks stars Paul Rudd as a guy who needs to bring a huge idiot to dinner at his boss's house to get a promotion. Rudd finds Steve Carrell, a well-meaning simpleton who stuffs dead mice and puts them into dioramas. There's not a lot in the trailer that's laugh-out-loud funny, but Rudd and Carrell are two of the most likeable comedians around, and the supporting cast is strong, including Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Greenwood, Kristin Schaal, Ron Livingston, and Jemaine Clement. We'll wait for another trailer before we make up our minds about this one.

Right, let's look at our men on missions. First up is The Losers. Based on the Vertigo graphic novel, The Losers are a badass special ops team that is betrayed by the government and left for dead. However, they decide to get payback. Produced by Joel Silver, who produced movies like Predator and Lethal Weapon back in the day, and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Sherlock Holmes and Orphan more recently, the film seems to be going for fun more than anything else. The film stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who came out of Watchmen with reputation enhanced, action queen of the moment Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek), newly crowned Captain America Chris Evans (Sunshine, Scott Pilgrim), The Wire's Idris Elba, and Jason Patric as bad guy Max. Director Sylvain White's resumé isn't great, but it's only his third feature. At the moment, this looks like the film with the greatest potential to not be a disaster

Now onto the A-Team. As we all know, they're four men imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit, who promptly escaped and if you can find them maybe you can hire them. They can also use whatever's in a room to create something destructive with the help of a quick montage. This movie version of the series is written and directed by Joe Carnahan, who must be looking for some of the pedigree he got with gritty cop thriller Narc, and lost with overblown muddled assassin movie Smokin' Aces. The cast is good, with Liam Neeson getting paid handsomely for playing Hannibal Smith, Hangover star Bradley Cooper as Face, and District 9's Sharlto Copley as Howlin' Mad Murdock. They're joined by Watchmen's Patrick Wilson as the villain, and Jessica Biel as the love interest. Ultimate Fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson stars as B.A. Baracus. The trailer looks like they're going for fun, but it's a sad fact that, despite what Seinfeld taught us, most movies that feature anything falling out of a plane and shooting back at the plane are normally crap.

And now for The Expendables. Sylvester Stallone has managed to get almost every action star to sign for this men on a mission movie. Sly himself leads his team of bad-ass mercenaries, made up of Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture into South America to take down evil CIA agent Eric Roberts. Oh, and he gets the jobs from Mickey Rourke, and Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenneger cameo as shady government guys. With this cast list, I'm going to see it no matter how bad the reviews are. It basically looks like a Rambo film, but with a bigger supporting cast. Let's just hope that Stallone wrote his co-stars actual characters, rather than just having them stand in the background. I'm still looking forward to it!

Finally, to counter the big budget stupidity, here is a trailer for a little indie film called The Good Heart. It stars Brian Cox as a grouchy New York bar owner who takes in homeless Paul Dano to groom him as his successor. This trailer shows off Cox and Dano, who look like they're giving excellent peformances, and it looks like a nice mixture of Jim Jarmusch-style humour and Hal Hartley-esque dialogue. This may well be worth seeking out.