The Losers Review

[Westside Steve]

The Losers

Warner Bros

PG 13 98 min

 

 

First of all I’d like to send a quick shout out to the good folks at the Regal Cinema Interstate Park 18 down in southern Summit County.

If you ever find yourself in the UCLA (Upper Canton / Lower Akron) area it’s a great place to catch a movie. There’s always a great selection and a great crew.

 

That’s the good news.

Now on to the movie itself.

As I’ve said many times before I’m a loyal DC Comics guy. Sure Marvel and the indies have some good stuff (Like Epic’s Marshal Law) but I know virtually nothing about the Vertigo lineup. Here’s the setup. In the grand tradition of KELLY’S HEROES, THE WILD GEESE and THE DIRTY DOZEN, THE LOSERS is about a group of highly trained soldiers who, for one reason or another, have fallen from grace in the traditional armed forces.

In this one a team of tough guys are on a mission to wipe out some sort of generic bad guy cartel in the jungle when they spot a bunch of kids, they disobey orders and save the kids, The cartel’s still destroyed but now the kids are OK. It’s all good right? Not exactly. Unbeknownst to the brass, specifically a dirtbag named “Max” (Jason Patric) the chopper that was supposed to take the operatives to safety is now filled with innocent children.

When it’s blown out of the sky the guys realize that fate was meant for them.

Well, now they’re all outcasts, betrayed by their own agency and in constant danger. That’s when a chance for revenge comes their way.

Aiesha (Zoe Saldana) roots out team leader Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) with some cockamamie scheme to exact revenge on their old pal Max. It will include a silly doomsday machine, a lot of completely implausible action sequences, bargain basement fight scenes, second-rate effects and some of the lamest dialogue of the action flick world.

And unlike the aforementioned films of the genre, that usually featured an all-star cast THE LOSERS sports a cast that would long to be on the C list.

In fact Patric is the only actor of note and even he sucks as the barely threatening antagonist.

Then again none of these actors wrote or directed this turkey.

To be fair, I asked a couple other members of the audience who told me that they hadn’t been aware this was from a graphic novel but they did like it a good bit.

So as usual, your mileage might vary.

 

D+

 

WSS

 

Email westsidesteve@aol.com