The Losers is an action film based on the comic book series of the same name concerning a group of soldiers trying to find the man who tried to kill them in Bolivia, which resulted in their identities being marked as deceased and their reputations destroyed.
I hadn't heard many great reviews for this film but I thought I have to give it a try, after all it stars Chris Evans (Captain America) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Supernatural, Grey's Anatomy), both of whom I have had massive crushes on at some point in their careers.
Now its not as though I regret watching this film, I wasn't doing much else with my afternoon, but equally it would not have been a tragedy if I had never seen it.
Okay so I will start with some positives, the action, when you have it, is done well, the effects are pretty decent and it feels like the fights are done is a more realistic time frame than many action movies would have us believe. I enjoyed the fight between Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana, especially as they both stretched beforehand rather than just launch into fisticuffs.
I also have no bad words about the actual acting, its hammy in places, quite a few in fact, but that is due to the story and the script - there is only so much an actor can do but if the words coming out of their mouths reek of bacon its a lost cause before they can try.
And this is where I will start my critique, the script writers have been previously responsible for the American High School Football centric series Friday Night Lights, the original comic 'The Losers', and surprisingly the 2007 film Zodiac. With the plethora of comic book movies out there you can understand the pressure to make something new, but the mix of sentiment and action does not blend well, and the characters are not adapted to the world of movies, they are generic and predictable. You have the mouthy computer wiz who is also fairly rubbish when it comes to the ladies (played by Evans), the icy second in command who is constantly on edge, the foreign sniper who does not talk much but has a soft side, the laid back driving/flying expert who keeps a lucky charm on him (a nodding dashboard dog), and finally we have Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character Colonel Clay again a typical leader, slightly roguish but determined and a good leader.
All the actors play their parts well, but they are the typical comic book soldiers, nothing especially brilliant or unique about them.
The prerequisite female presence is in the form of Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek XI), a volatile and wealthy woman bent on finding and killing Max, the mysterious super villain responsible for the death of her father and destroying The Loser's lives. Zoe is well equipped to handle the action as well as being a seductress, but again her character is so two dimensional you already know why she is so interested in the Losers almost before she arrives on screen.
Despite all this there is one character who out does all the rest on predictability and sheer annoyance factor, and that is Max the so called super villain. Imagine all the cartoon villains you watched as a kid, give them extra fire power and some swear words and you have Max. Unlike most actors given such a role, here I think of Jack Nicholson's Joker, Jason Patric (My Sister's Keeper, Speed 2) has no fun playing the villain, or at least if he is enjoying himself it is not evident on screen. Even his sidekick is neither terrified or in awe of him, and is frankly rather dull. Max is so over the top, but he is not scary, and somebody who can decide to have a person thrown off the top of a building by a nod should at least thrill the audience, and I remained pretty calm.
What really lets the film down is the direction, there are many movies that have predictable characters and plot lines but still remain watchable (Die Hard 2 suffers from bad scripting but still holds together). Sylvain White (Stomp The Yard) is the man in charge here, and he has interlaced the action and banter with oddly shot sex scenes that are not explicit but almost too intimate for this kind of film, yes sex sells but sometimes sexual tension can be enough to keep an audience engaged. The plot is allowed to trudge its way through the motions, from the brutal beginning of mass child murder, which is not as sad as it should be, to the finale showdown between the Losers, a former friend, and super villain Max. The story is not confusing or too intelligent for the viewer, it is predictable at every twist and turn, the budget was obviously not small but White appears to have only been able to make the action effective with it, the rest suffers from a lack of artistry by the director.
Unfortunately this movie plays out like a poorly written comic book, the action scenes are fun but not enough to save the hammy script, and despite a stellar cast (Idris Elba of The Wire and Luther plays the angry second in command) they too cannot save this film from being yet another action movie with no clout.
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