Henry Saw: The Losers

Not...bad.


This was the first comic book movie in awhile that I did not immediately go out and see. One reason for that is I did not love the source material. The Losers, a book by Andy Diggle and Jock, was a decent but uninspired action book from Vertigo comics. The Losers is clearly a modern version of The A-Team, another property with a movie coming out this summer, and the comic never quite hit the right beats for me. The movie works better than the book. The movie's not great, it's filled with major issues, but it's fun. Much to my surprise...it's far more entertaining than Kick-Ass was.

The plot summary via Warner Brothers: A tale of double cross and revenge, centered upon the members of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. The team-Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar -find themselves the target of a lethal betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Presumed dead, the group makes plans to even the score when they're joined by the mysterious Aisha, a beautiful operative with her own agenda. Working together, they must remain deep undercover while tracking the heavily-guarded Max, a ruthless man bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war.



In a movie like The Losers the audience only cares about two things: The cast and the action. The ultimate example of a "team on a mission" film is obviously Aliens. It is unfair to ask another movie to capture a group dynamic as well as James Cameron's film did, but that's what every similar movie should strive for, with something like Mission Impossible 2 as an example of what to avoid. If the cast is strong they can make bad dialogue sound good, or hopefully, improvise better interactions than the script. This is where The Losers gets it the most right.

Chris Evans' back must have hurt after shooting this movie because he carries The Losers. Evans, an actor you might recognize as Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four movies, is a really (to use a Ben-ism) winning actor. While he's been in his fair share of crap films (Cellular, Push, Not Another Teen Movie) he's never bad. He was by far the best part of both Fantastic Four films. I recently rewatched Danny Boyle's Sunshine, in which he's not the comedic relief, and I am always surprised by how convincing he is in that film. After watching Sunshine you can understand why he has been cast in Captain America. In The Losers he plays the tech-guy Jensen and he steals the show. He's funny, charming, brings out the best in the rest of the cast, sells a lot of stupid scenes...he's fantastic.

The rest of the cast is...okay. I really liked Óscar Jaenada as the stoic sniper Cougar. Columbus Short veers into Alpa Chino in Tropic Thunder territory but he sells some funny lines. Idris Elba, one of the cooler actors working now, seems kind of uninterested throughout...but I'll watch Elba in anything. Zoe Saldana, in her first post-Avatar role, is fine. She looks good, but never seems that tough, and is just kind of eye candy. Jeffery Dean Morgan, who played The Comedian in Watchmen, and who is basically the lead of the film, still just looks like a fat Robert Downey Jr. He seems incredibly bored, is quite uncompelling, and is kind a black hole of blah.

Then there is the villain...Max...played by Jason Patric. Look, I know that being Jason Patric is probably not the happiest life. He was the lead in a cult-favorite called The Lost Boys, got rave reviews for playing a drug addled cop in Rush, and was part of another "team" movie with Sleepers. Then...he got the part Keanu Reeves turned down in Speed 2. Then he was in Narc, not the worst film, but a movie no one saw. Smaller parts in The Alamo, In the Valley of Elah (elah elah eh eh), followed...but he's one of those actors who you don't quite know how you know their name. He's sort of famous but no one really knows why. Maybe it all boils down to this scene from The Lost Boys:



Anyway, Jason Patric is the villain in this movie...and he's horrendous. Truly awful. He seems to think he's in a Roger Moore Bond movie mixed with a children's film like Blank Check. I can't describe how excruciating it is to watch Patric on screen. He ruins, no destroys, every scene he's in. Good god what a disaster.

The other half of the equation, the action, varies from solid to bland. The first action sequence, a rescue operation in the South American jungle is strong. Another good scene, again thanks to Chris Evans, is Jensen's infiltration of a secure office building. The finale, though a little disjointed and lacking in danger, was perfectly fine. The middle section of the film, including a ridiculous attack on an armored truck, is middling. There's a little too much quick editing, the audience never knows precisely where everyone is in each action scene, and the editor uses a stupid freeze frame effect that only detracts.



So what did I think? The Losers is...fine. It's really not that bad. It's more entertaining than Kick-Ass (though not even Chris Evans can match up with Hit-Girl) and knows what kind of movie it should be. Not a movie you have to see, certainly not in theaters, but don't dodge it. It's perfectly fine.

Grade: B-

Best Scene: Chris Evans in the office building...