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

Recent Release Reviewed: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong
Screenplay: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn based on the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.
Director: Matthew Vaughn

"Tool up, Honey-bunny. It's time to get bad guys"

Dave Lizewski is a regular, nerdy high school nobody until he decides to put on a costume and fight crime as Kick-Ass. After being so badly beaten that his nerve endings are too damaged to feel pain, he starts winning fights and becomes an internet sensation. But he's not the only costumed crime-fighter in town. Soon he meets Hit Girl and Big Daddy, a father-daughter duo who are taking their vigilantism is a bit more seriously and racking up quite the body count.

During the first scene in which the well-intentioned but basically inept Dave meets Hit Girl, he spends most of the scene cowering on the floor while the 11 year-old child dismembers a room full of bad guys, wisecracking and grinning. The look on his face his pure terror. The look on hers is glee. This sums up in a very simplistic fashion a viewer's response to watching Kick-Ass. Yes, it's shocking to see this young girl kill so many people in superbly and imaginatively choreographed set-pieces. But it's damn entertaining.

But let's start at the beginning. This is the third feature for director Matthew Vaughn after Layer Cake and Stardust, and his second with co-writer Goldman. It's also his best by quite some way. While Stardust benefited hugely from a sense of humour to offset the fantastical story-line, Kick-Ass benefits from moments of straight-faced darkness that remind us that this mostly comedic film is set in the real world. Dave's mother wasn't killed by a mobster, she was killed by a brain aneurysm. People do get hurt, and characters do get killed. Of course, that doesn't mean that the film lacks comic fantasy.

The film starts as a funny riff on Spider-Man, with Dave Lizewski (played well by Nowhere Boy's Aaron Johnson) growing bored of his inconsequential life, hanging out with his friends and the comic book store and being regularly mugged. When he asks his friends why no one has tried it before, the answer is simple: "Because they'd get their ass kicked!". They're not wrong. His first attempts at fighting crime end shockingly violently, and lead to his "super-power". Dave's action scenes are believable and painful.

While these scenes are good, they pale in comparison to those featuring Hit Girl and Big Daddy. We're introduced to the two characters as he is about to shoot her in the chest with a hand-gun to show her that there's nothing to be afraid of. "I wouldn't be afraid anyway" she tells him, but puts up with it. Their real identities are Damon and Mindy Macready, who are working their way up towards mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). It's been a while since Nicolas Cage has been this good. We're used to seeing him play quirky, but there's a heart and a sadness here that is too often missing from the actor's work. His performance is an excellent combination of comic oddity, paternal tenderness, and dark hints at psychosis.

Then there's Chloe Moretz. Kick-Ass would be a far inferior film were it not for her performance. She manages not to coast by on the fact that her character is violent and swears a lot, giving a geniunely witty turn and hinting that there may be a little girl inside. It's not too big a hint though. Mostly, she just enjoys killing bad guys. My hopes for the Let the Right One In remake have gone up after this film. The cast is rounded out by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad's McLovin) playing the geeky son of Frank D'Amico who dresses up as crime-fighter Red Mist and Mark Strong as D'Amico himself, who has a lot of fun as the increasingly furious mob boss.

The action is handled well by Vaughn, and for the most part the film manages not to betray its meager budget. The set-pieces match the tone of the film: startling violent but comically over-the-top. The "New York" streets do occasionally look like a sound-stage but not too often. The soundtrack is also impressive, making excellent use of pieces of music from 28 Days Later and Sunshine in amongst the catchy pop-rock.

This most certainly isn't for everyone, but if you found the trailers funny, the film is fantastic. It's hilarious, shocking, exciting, and frankly kick-ass. Also, it's got that rare thing: The good Nicolas Cage performance. Catch it!

8/10

Very foul-mouthed Hit-Girl trailer: