Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
All of you hopeful screenwriters and novelist out there trying to get that product made and eventually read by some Hollywood type mover and shaker might as well stop right now and refocus those energies on making yourself comic book…. Errr… I mean Graphic Novel. If Hollywood is putting some big time loot behind some feature film, rare is the occurrence that it is putting this loot behind the singular original idea that some poor screenwriter shacked up in his efficiency has managed to hack out. No sir, the comic book is the way to prosperity it would appear to us over here which leads us to the latest obscure comic book to be made into a feature film, Andy Diggle’s comic book ‘The Losers’. Now I haven’t read the comic so I don’t how explosively stupid the book is but the movie, my friends, almost the prototype for explosive stupidity. Outstanding.
Dateline Bolivia. The Losers, as they are called for whatever reason, are on a mission to bring down a drug lord. These losers consist of Pooch who drives machines and shoots stuff (Columbus Short), Roque who carries knives and shoots stuff (Idris Elba), Jensen who works on computers and shoots stuff (Chris Evans), Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) who only shoots stuff and they are lead by Colonel Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who gives orders and shoots stuff. This mission in Bolivia seems to be on the up and up but it’s not long into the mission that it all goes straight to hell. Now The Losers are pretty much stranded in Bolivia, believed to be dead and framed for some crimes they did not commit, which is nothing like the A-Team...wink, wink, as they work to get up enough money to get back to the USA, clear their names and exact their revenge on the evil man who has set them up, the Karazy Evil CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, Secret Service, Special Forces, DEA Head Honcho Max (Jason Patrick).
Then one day she shows up. She is Aisha (Zoe Saldana) and she has made the acquaintance of Colonel Clay. There was this shot of Zoe Saldana slowly walking
away with the camera trained on her backside. What, exactly, was I supposed to be looking at there? I hope it wasn’t her butt because I could pick my teeth Zoe Saldana’s butt. That doesn’t mean we don’t love the the super slim beauty, plus my fourteen year old has sworn his undying love to her which is fantastic because it is another indication that he might not be gay, not there’s anything wrong with that. I'm just saying I'd much rather gaze into Zoe Saldana’s beautiful eyes than look at her inverted behind.
Anyway, Aisha can get them back home with the one stipulation that they take out Max in what adds up to a complete suicide mission. Roque doesn’t trust the cutie, and probably rightfully so because we were wondering how this ninety pound woman learned her super fighting skills, has access to all kinds of wicked weaponry and possesses unencumbered access to all of our ports of entry but what choice do they have? Besides the Colonel trusts her. I mean he really, really trusts her, know what I’m saying? Evil Max, of course, is your atypical mega maniacal bad guy who has a plan to destroy the planet more or less unless The Losers can bring him down. Every conceivable fashion of explosion, crash, double cross, mayhem and chaos shall ensue.
My friends, ‘The Losers’ is what it is, and to its credit it is making no attempt to be anything more than that. Sylvain White directs a movie working off a script co-written by Peter Berg who is a film director who knows a thing about crafting a quality stupid action flick. Also considering that Mr. White’s last film was the stupidly entertaining ‘Stomp the Yard’ the stars were aligned perfectly in this one for stupid entertaining action. The cast that they assembled for this mini-classic was completely on board with the plan because they seemed to be having an awful lot of fun in this flick. Every once in a while it looked like Idris Elba would actually try to start acting or some nonsense… I mean he is British and all and you know how they are with all of their fancy training… But Chris Evans was never far behind to bring everything, including Idris, back into its proper perspective. The story was such that at times it felt like they were making it up as they went along, plot points were bulldozed through at rapid fire speeds and at the hint of things looking like they were about to slow down and cause the mind to actually think about the movie for over a minute, something blew up or somebody got shot in the head.
A friend of mine said watching ‘The Losers’ took him back to simpler time when movies didn’t have make sense. He mentioned that one could substitute Fred Williamson for Harry Dean Morgan, slip in Lee Van Cleef for the role of Cougar and dig up Eli Wallach for Max and you have a sweet throwback 1970’s style stupid action flick, the kind that folks used to stand in line to see at the uniplex back in the day. Tragically, as we have noted on many occasions, the demographic doesn’t make room for stupid action all that often anymore, even comic book based stupid action as they opt for stupid gay pirates, stupid metrosexual pale vampires and stupid schoolboy sorcerers. Note that those movies are based off of a carnival ride, a tween novel and a kids novel respectively as the poor original screenwriter in his efficiency with the good idea still receives no love. Regardless, put your brain on pause and watch some stuff blow up, blow up some more and watch Zoe handle a bazooka like pro and you will no doubt find some entertainment value in ‘The Losers’.