THE LOSERS (English/18+)
Genre: Action/Adventure
Release Date: 22 April 2010
Distributor: Warner Bros
Running Time: 103 mins.
Director: Slyvain White
Producers: Joel Silver, Akiva Goldmsan, Kerry Foster
Writers: Peter Berg, James Vanderbilt, Andy Diggle (comic book)
Casts: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Oscar Jaenada, Jason Patric
Plot: A highly skilled CIA team is attacked by their own agency and left for dead. They set out to learn why they were betrayed, and to avenge the wrong, as well as other injustices they encounter.
THE VERDICT
The Losers is nothing but a cheap version of The A-Team, a story filled with a group of United States soldiers been framed and crucified, or rather in this film, been left to death to be the only reason they left by a man who is so powerful to influence an operation in South America. To make things even unfair, it’s another DC Comics rip off and I have to say nothing is alright nor not in this flick. It is kind of disappointing to see many casting wasted for nothing but I was relieved that there is more to save from the movie.
The Losers revolves around the five members of elite United States Special Forces team is sent into the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. The elite team including Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar find themselves the target of a betrayal instigated from inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Believed to be dead, the group makes plans to even the score when they're joined by the mysterious Aisha, a beautiful operative with rather sly moves. Together they track and follow the ruthless and heavily armed and guarded Max to foil his plans of transforming the world as we know it into a new high-tech global battleground.
The principle story of The Losers is the same like what you are going to expect this June. When The A-Team comes, you will say, “Hey, this is a bigger version of The Losers.” Well spot on! Despite sharing the common theme of revenge, there is (I’m sure) many to differentiate between the two. My inner sense still tells me that The A-Team will be better and I hope it really does. Not to say this movie is sickening or what, but director Sylvain White chooses a simple direction of the film by going true to the original comic series. You have much debatable good action scenes going along freely with the funny script pretty much similar to the material you may find in a comic book. It certainly feels something good if you can really enjoy the comic feel in this film, albeit not so much because there was not much story to tell.
The script written by Peter Berg is so loud and out-of-control at times. Loud for the actions and lack of fresh good film editing at times, thus makes the story isn’t much to be talked about. There is certain scenes which highlights the action in much faster pace and it matters the action the most that sometimes it sacrifices the sanity and the senses of the plot. Sometimes it feels retarded and sometimes it feels gloriously picked up with great stunt and action coordination. Watching The Losers gave me something uneasiness – worrying that it might blown out of proportion too much at a time or been too ridiculous. It was a fortunate sight that the director did not overkill the movie, perhaps retaining some common sense to chew my popcorns.
One could contemplate that the wrong doings for this film is the inability to portray the characters as who they are. It seems awkward that I’m watching this movie because of Chris Evans, not Jensen; or Jeffrey Dean Morgan and not Clay. The Losers focuses more on the satire expansion of the character and not on discovering the nature of the character itself. But I’m not saying the casts are not doing the great jobs here. Technically speaking, I like Chris Evans’ Jensen, computer whiz, looks geeky but also providing the much needed lame comedy relief. He stands out more than anybody else in the movie and that’s it. Even the character Max looks forceful to be evil and what ever he did or talked make no sense at all.
In a summary, this movie did a fantastic bold attempt to make it good but it is still not the aces we want. It suffers low duty action scenes that though enjoyable but not to the standard of the usual action films. It contains louder gunfight rather than a visually excellent story to follow. The story is just decent, nothing great. The humors are cheaply found everywhere and stunt coordination is well-acted. I guess that’s all folks!
THE RATING:
Story - 2.5 stars
Casts - 3.5 stars
Cinematography - 3.0 stars
Effects - 3.0 stars
OVERALL - 3.0 stars
GREEN-TEA-O-METER: 11.8