Review: The Losers

The Losers doesn't waste much time. In fact, it never seems to stop for a single breath. It begins right smack in the middle of a dangerous jungle mission in Bolivia. We're introduced to the five Special Forces agents that make up The Losers through quick, stylized freeze framing: team leader Clay(Jeffrey Dean Morgan), his right hand man and malcontent Roque(Idris Elba), jokester tech geek Jensen(Chris Evans), regular joe Pooch(Columbus Short), and grim-faced sniper Cougar(Oscar Jaenada). The mission quickly goes all pear shaped, but the Losers do what they do best and pull it out, only to be betrayed by a mysterious government figure known as Max(Jason Patric).

Max is one of those shady beaurucrats with no real job title or status, the kind you always see in movies like this. They don't actually have an office anywhere, they just sorta hang out in warehouses and factories, controlling the world like a puppet through phone calls and the occasional car bomb. Whether or not these guys exist is beyond me, but if they do I'd never sign up to be their chief henchman. Those guys are always morons. In this case, Max's right hand man is Wade, a former associate of the Losers and apparently a very dangerous dude. He seems too stupid to be of any real threat.

The Losers are essentially pariahs. Declared dead by their government and unable to re-enter the country, they got nowhere to go. Enter the sexy, sultry Aisha(Zoe Saldana), who introduces herself to Clay through a fist fight full of so much sexual innuendo that I thought it was midnight and I was watching Cinemax. She convinces the team that she can help them gain revenge on Max, although her motivations and seemingly endless cash reserves remain shrouded in mystery. Not that anybody cares, they(and I) were too busy staring at her in those red jeans. Guh.

What follows is probably exactly what you're expecting. The Losers is a cheesy ode to 1980s style actioners, and that's exactly why it's so much fun to watch. The characters are cardboard cut out muscleheads and pranksters. If you're expecting depth you're in the wrong theater. The Losers snap at eachother, fight like brothers, and crack gallows humor while staring down the losing end of a gun barrell.  Co-writers Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt are clearly going for a vibe reminiscent of The Italian Job only with bigger explosions, more guns, and a hotter babe.

In that regard, the story loses some points for stripping down Andy Diggle's original 2003 series, which managed a fine balance of high octane, cinematic style action while simultaneously immersing us into a massive conspiracy that forced the characters to reveal deeper parts of themselves. There's none of that here, and while that clearly was not in director Sylvain White's mission statement, there are times when The Losers seems to be on fast forward. One or two more scenes explaining the tension between Roque and Clay would've been helpful.

The standout is Chris Evans, who has finally made me a full convert. Jensen is the comedic highlight of the entire film, wearing bright attention grabbing t-shirts that fly in the face of their covert status. Think Johnny Depp in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, only more outlandish. His charming, self deprecating humor manages to get him out of and into more than one life threatening jam after another.After years of pretty much dismissing Evans as a hairdo and a pretty face, the guy seems to be hitting his stride. Still not so sure about him as Captain America, though.

The other major issue is Jason Patric as Max. Max is a cartoonish, Snidely Whiplash style villain. It's almost like he was ripped from some never before seen James Bond parody. You know he's evil because he wears a glove to cover his scarred up hand, and wears a blazing white suit all the time, I'm assuming to counter the blackness of his heart. It's classic comic book stuff. He's so over-the top condescending that one wonders if he ever gets dizzy looking down on people all the time. Any story such as this is only as good as it's villain, and while some will balk at the often corny dialogue it works because Max is equal parts terrifying. He kills on a whim. God help you if you've been hired to carry his umbrella on a windy day.

For me, it's Patric's performance that firmly establishes the reason why The Losers works. It's not supposed to be grounded in any sort of reality. It's completely tongue in cheek, turn your brain off, roller coaster stuff. It's 90 minutes of pure adrenaline, bad jokes, and hot chicks. In the coming months, we're going to be treated to two more movies just like this: The A-Team, and The Expendables. If either of those are as much fun as The Losers, it's going to one heck of a summer.