The Losers doesn’t pretend to be a good film. The second our protagonists watch a helicopter full of children drop out of the sky like a flaming meteorite and subsequently throw in their dogtags to fake their death, you know you’re watching a b-grade action flick tribute. When you realize that, you’re willing to allow for more shortcomings than you would if this was a more serious franchise. For the very same reason people tolerate and love the Crank series, they’ll enjoy The Losers: it’s silly fun steeped in the mythos of its own genre. However, even the accommodations that the b-movie tributary status allow won’t get you past some poor dialogue, lots of plotholes, and some bad acting. Though for those wanting nothing more than fun, campy action, The Losers is a winner (I’m sorry).
Max (Jason Patric), a mysterious sociopath, has ambitions of global fear-mongering only encouraged by his recent acquisition of snukes, warheads which can reorganize the matter of an entire island into dust. He works his way towards finalizing the business deal that will put them physically in his hands, and for a good portion of that, he believes his motions to be unseen by anyone capable of stopping him. But they’re not. Little does Max know, but the group of black-ops soldiers he thought he killed in a fiery helicopter has been living below the radar in Bolivia, waiting for their chance to seek revenge. The chance has arisen.
Meet the losers. Led by Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the band of misfits includes Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) a sniper, Rogue (Idris Elba) a knife guy, Jensen (Chris Evans) a tech guy, and Pooch (Columbus Short) a vehicles guy. Since their supposed death they’ve been living menial lives, but all that changes when Aisha (Zoe Saldana) shows up and suggests they take down Max for all the criminal activity he engages in across the globe. Along the way they airlift an armored truck, send Chris Evans running through an office building in a mad dash for escape with a Journey soundtrack, and steal a helicopter. It’s fun, it’s got explosions, and it some gunplay – it’s everything your average action flick junkie expects from an action flick. The major bits are nothing too impressive in today’s ridiculously high standards of special effects-enhanced stunt work, but they’re enough to provide a framework for what may see as the film’s greatest strength and others as its greatest weakness: the dialogue.
The [“]witty[“] banter (quotation marks dependent on opinion) fits nicely in line with the modern progression of conversational wit that has developed in the genre. Taking off with John McClane’s self-reproaching commentary throughout the Die Hard series, the trend has escalated to the current style of discussing pop-culture references or off-topic things in rapid-fire rapport. In one instance Pooch and Jensen reveal their shorthand in a funny though typical fashion when they encounter and decide to hotwire a school bus in about 10 words worth of conversation. It’s not limited to the heroes either. Jason Patric, clearly channeling the personality of Jason Lee, has dialogue which is made up almost entirely of tangential comedy. Kill the team. Why? Why do you care , are you related? To one of them, yes, a brother-in-law. Oh, then fire them, wait, do they know too much? Yes. Then kill them. Okay, just a brother-in-law.
When you insist on villains practicing comical dialogue the experiment fails unless the villain is remotely likable. Patric fails in two different ways as he never proves very likable (even when he’s trying to be funny) and his character never has a redeeming moment, meaning he’s just a cretin and not a lovable ass. The latter is paramount to making a villain’s condescending comedy functional.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
There’s quite a bit to enjoy in the extras section, so once you’ve downloaded the digital copy to your computer, put the disc in and navigate to the bonus features. Featurettes include a look at the military training received by the cast, a behind the scenes look at the making of certain action scenes, and a sort of romantic view of Puerto Rico for allowing the production crew to pretend like they were in several different countries without ever leaving its shores. Courting the interest of the graphic novel’s fans is a piece featuring author Andy Diggle and artist Jock (Mark Simpson) discussing the characters, the story and the evolution of the two. Finally, and this is easily my favorite of the bunch, Zoe Saldana talks about sharing the screen with the barrel of testosterone that was her co-stars. A few funny moments come to light.
"The Losers" is on sale July 20, 2010 and is rated PG13. Action. Directed by Sylvain White. Written by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt (screenplay), Andy Diggle (characters) . Starring Chris Evans, Columbus Short, Idris Elba, Jason Patric, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoë Saldana, Óscar Jaenada.
