Review: You won't lose with 'The Losers'

Courtesy of www.NCM.com

Being a DC – Vertigo Comics joint, The Losers starts with a lot of comic book framing and nods to the visual medium of the graphic novel, instantly informing the audience that this film, like seemingly every other movie made these days, has its roots in hand drawn stories. But unlike those stories about mutant spider-men and vengeful billionaire playboys, this story seems to be ripped straight from the action movies of the 1980’s.

Quick story set up: Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Watchmen) is the leader of a five-man special ops squad, with each member obviously specializing in a certain tactical area. They also all specialize in having only one name: there is Jensen (Chris Evans), Rogue (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Oscar Jaenada). While on a mission in Bolivia, the group disobeys orders that would have killed a busload of children, and as a result, mysterious leader and singularly-named Max (Jason Patric) attempts to have Clay’s group killed. It goes wrong, the group is alive (though considered dead by the US Government) and off they go to clear their names and reclaim their lives. Then comes single-named Aisha (Zoe Saldana) sashaying her way into the group, and she tries to cut a deal with them to team up and go after Max. Great set up, pretty expertly done in both simplicity and economy; most of this stuff happens in a pre-opening title sequence.

Along with the 1980’s style story, the comic book nods are dropped fairly quickly, and what’s left is a pretty bad ass and straightforward action movie. What’s interesting here is how this 80’s style action movie is given a modern sensibility, and it actually comes across literally as a rock ‘n roll action flick. Lots of loud music accompany the quick-edits (and here, quick editing does not equate to sloppy, no-idea-what-could-be-going-on editing) and director Sylvain White often uses the music video techniques that he developed prior to his feature-film career to add some pop and pizzazz to the film. As a result, The Losers hums along quite nicely on the strength of its well done action scenes and characters.

Clay and Aisha get some good development, and of course the obligatory “love interest” scenes, and Rogue gets built up nicely as the story moves on, allowing for some decent story and character choices toward the end of the film. Pooch has some emotional development as he deals with his preggo wife back home who thinks he is dead, but otherwise he really just drives everyone around. Similarly, Cougar only seems to exist so he can position himself very far away and take people out with his sniper rifle. Which just leaves Jensen, who comes down to three things: funny t-shirts, getting shot down by women and being funny. So this is not at the Martin Scorsese Casino level of characterization for sure, but at least the actors are charismatic enough to make each character work (especially Chris Evans, who is getting ready to break out in a huge way as Captain America). Jason Patric is awesomely campy and ruthless as Max, a criminal genius who also seems to be in the running for world’s biggest asshole, and while his big evil scheme seems to be a little vague and kind of lacking in a set end-goal, a nicely done personal connection between Max and the Losers is set up right away, which carries all the way through to the end.

However, there are a few things in this movie that are kind of head scratchers and make me wonder how much thought went into this movie outside of “Oh hey, wouldn’t this look super cool?” For example, when Aisha first meets Clay, they go back to his hotel room where they are seemingly going to do whatever it is that consenting adults do in hotel rooms, but they quickly break out into a knock-em-down, drag-em-out mega fight that ends with the hotel burning down. And by the end of the fight, as Aisha and Clay struggle to kill each other, Aisha brings up what she wanted to in the beginning and Clay is all like “oh that’s it? Okay, sounds good.” This whole fight scene is insanely unnecessary and really makes very little sense. But hey, it looked cool. Also, there is really no explanation as to why these guys are called the Losers. It would have made a little sense if they were called the Losers after they were betrayed by their own government and were out on their own, but it is established before this happens that the Losers is the moniker the group has, and it doesn’t really make any sense. It’s not like these are guys that were kicked out of other units or like this is some sort of last chance government squad. As a matter of fact, these guys are really good at their jobs and calling them Losers seems both mean and inaccurate. These guys are Winners, not Losers. But that doesn’t sound as cool, does it? The Losers it is then.

Not a bad movie. Plenty of fun and ridiculous action, Jeffrey Dean Morgan shows that he has what it takes to be the lead in movies like this (whether you see him as a poor man’s Clive Owen or a Value Menu version of Javier Bardem), Zoe Saldana is photographed like glowing sex and everyone else seems to have a good time. Sylvain White is still growing as a filmmaker and this is a big step up from I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer and Stomp the Yard. Let’s see where he goes next (and obviously it would not be a surprise if he goes to The Losers 2).

New feature alert! All theatrical film reviews will now come with a rundown of the trailers that played before it, as long as I can even remember what I saw. And without further ado:

Trailer Rundown:

The A-Team – it makes perfect sense to show this trailer before The Losers, which comes across as a less campy version of The A-Team. This is a full length trailer that shows a lot more than the previous teaser trailer, with each character getting lots of time except for Sharlto Copley’s Murdock, which gives some credence to the buzz that his performance is absolutely god-awful, as it seems they are hiding him from the public. I hope he saved up that District 9, money. While the movie does look like fun, most of my interest in this movie stems from the fact that it is directed by Joe Carnahan, who kicked ass with Narc and then stumbled with Smokin’ Aces.

The Expendables – another group of men consisting of ex-special forces soldiers movie, again this one makes sense to show in front of The Losers. It’s a lot of fun sitting in a theater with a lot of people and hearing all the reactions when they see that a movie is coming out that features Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis, Lundgren, Statham, Li, Rourke and about a million other awesome people. I wish this trailer was better: the tone seems really confused, like it wants to be a fun action movie but also wants to be really serious and kind of heavy. And I hate the radio-ready hard rock song that plays over the last third of the trailer. But otherwise, this teaser gets me excited for Sly’s next opus.

Takers – a pretty contrived looking bank heist movie, like a very, very, very low end Heat, this one has both Zoe Saldana and Idris Elba in it, so all those Saldana and Elba fans that go to see The Losers will know they have another movie coming out. But those people will also see that this movie similarly stars the one-two punch of Hayden Christensen and Paul Walker, which would be bad enough normally. But then woman-beater Chris Brown pops up and with that, absolutely any interest I might have ever had in watching this flick went right out the window. Bad acting is one thing, movies actively employing scumbags is another. I guess it is easier to take a moral stand against a movie that looks so insipid, but still, no Chris Brown for me.

Step Up 3D – I really don’t understand why they showed this trailer in front of The Losers. The Step Up crowd generally is not the same as the action movie crowd. On top of that, The Losers is not in 3D so this trailer is not in 3D, so that’s a double whammy. I have not seen Step Up or Step Up 2 the Streets, but the dancing scenes in this trailer look so absolutely, incredibly ridiculous that I might have to check it out. It is kind of hard to explain how all the dance battles, obviously filmed with 3D in mind, have a kind of hyper-real and almost dream like quality to them (especially when it looks like they break out Tron suits). There is a good chance I’ll sneak off to see a matinee of this movie by myself when it comes out, it looks that absurd.

Splice – a horror movie produced by the makers of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone and directed by the man behind Cube, Splice looks like an insane and very moody film about a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong. The early buzz for this movie is very strong and it is nice to see that it is getting a full fledged theatrical release later this year (as the reviews alluded to a movie that is very strange and off kilter and would actually be difficult to market to the masses). Sarah Polley is great, while Adrien Brody is hit and miss, so it’ll be interesting to see how they work together (and with the aforementioned filmmakers).