The Losers is a bit of a weird one, based on the comic of the same name, it is nowhere near as dark as its’ source but manages to be fun, snappy and highly enjoyable nonetheless. Starring a solid array of actors, including Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba and Chris Evans, the movie is a 90 minute action flick that it’s hard not to love. Even in the scenes where no-one’s shooting or blowing anything up, it keeps its’ momentum and moves on with no sections dragging.
Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) leads a US Special Forces team consisting of Roque (Idris Elba from TV’s The Wire) his second in command, Pooch (Columbus Short) the team’s transport specialist, Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) the taciturn Hispanic sniper and Jensen (Chris Evans) the wisecracking wannabe ladies man who serves as tech and comms officer.
When we first see them, the team are in Bolivia to laser designate a drug baron’s villa for a bombing run. Just as they call in the airstrike, the team spot a bus-load of schoolkids being unloaded at the villa to serve as human shields. Clay aborts the airstrike only to be told by a mystery voice that operational control were aware of the kids and don’t care. Clay smashes the designator to force the incoming jet to target by sight and buy the team enough time to rescue the kids. This choice doesn’t go over well with the mystery man so as a result the team are framed for an atrocity and marked for death. That’s the first ten minutes or so. They cram in a lot of action in this movie.
While the comic did feature some great interplay between the characters, the dialogue here is equally sharp and quick-fire but can be more light-hearted at times. While not ostensibly played for laughs, there are some genuinely laugh out loud lines and moments, often provided by the film’s villain; Max.
Arguably the biggest departure from the comic, Max is literally a white cat short of being a Bond villain here. From the locations we see him in, to his master plan (heavily modified from the original), he is ironically enough, perhaps not quite as sinister, evil and calculating as his two-dimensional inspiration. Jason Patric makes him a great villain and delivers some of the film’s most killer lines with a flair that almost makes you like him for his dark sense of humour. Personally I find there’s two ways to make a screen villain memorable, either: Make him sympathetic to the audience to a degree by justifying his actions so that the viewer can understand their actions even if they don’t agree with them OR make him wholly immoral, cruel and intelligently wicked. Look at Alan Rickman’s turn in Die-Hard or Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.
Chris Evans, as the team’s tech expert Jensen, steals the movie. While less combat focused compared to the rest of the team, Jensen’s moment in the sun comes when he infiltrates an evil corporation (Aren’t they always) to get a cipher the Losers need. The rest of the team are almost entirely absent from this sequence with the exception of Clay’s voice in Jensen’s earpiece and Cougar’s welcome cameo at the very end.
If there is a weak point in the film, it’s that Zoe Saldana is functional without being exceptional as the film’s sole significant female. I get that this has been packaged as a very macho, testosterone driven action film, but the Aisha we get here is not the dangerous stone-cold killer from the comic book. Maybe the director thought she’d threaten the guys or undermine them.
There’s some nice visual flourishes in The Losers, whenever the location changes we get a sweeping vista with the location name layered on top, in a manner reminiscent of the way Zombieland showed you the post-zombie apocalypse rules. Certain scenes will shift to slow-mo when there’s a particularly difficult jump, or a long-range sniper shot. I think this is what Michael Bay could be like if he wasn’t quite so over the top.
The film still works well, but I did find myself wondering what a more faithful adaptation would have been like. The possibility of a sequel exists, not least because one of Max’s plans is briefly mentioned but never explained during the film, although The Losers didn’t do great guns at the US Box Office and that more than likely hurts its’ chances. Go see The Losers, it’s 90 minutes of fun dialogue, great action sequences and you’ll be hard-pressed to find another film so unrelentingly kick-ass this summer.
