"The Losers" refers to a small team of elite soldiers — each with their own specialty, such as communications, transport, sniping and so on — who work for our government in black ops assignments. The beginning of the movie finds us with The Losers — the name of the team, not the movie, hence no quotes — in Bolivia on an assignment to take down a known drug lord by painting his compound with lasers so that air-dropped bombs can find their target.
Well, as often does in these types of movies, things go south. The Losers see that children are being bussed into the compound they’re about to have air-bombed, so of course, being the good guys that they are, storm into rescue them. After this, they’re not only accused of betraying their country, but are also marked as deceased (so yes, as my friend pointed out, Jeffrey Dean Morgan dies in another movie/TV show). 😉
Without giving too much away, this begins a journey of payback that is fun, funny, and action-packed. Given it’s PG-13 rating, it’s not as violent as other films — like "Shoot ‘Em Up", a favorite of mine, for example — but the violence is well-done, exciting and fun to watch. There are also some sexual situations, but those are somewhat protracted as well. The main winner in this movie, I think, is the dialogue. It’s pretty damned sharp, and never gets boring or clichéd.
Another thing I really liked about this movie is how it trusts the audience. The movie jumps around to different locations, and while it tells you where you are, it doesn’t feel the need to tell you that time has passed or other stuff has happened, as again it trusts the audience to just know that, and I really liked that. I also liked that, as ridiculous as the movie truly was, it never was too ridiculous as to take one out of the action, as some movies do with regularity.
The acting was also fantastic all around. The main reasons I wanted to see this movie were the aforementioned Jeffrey Dean Morgan (of my favorite show, Supernatural, and many other things) and Zoe Saldana (of the recent Star Trek remake), but surprisingly everyone in it was entertaining, and their characters were well-crafted. Heck, I even liked the bad guy a little bit, because he was human and had a sense of humor, as well as being wicked smart. The character I think I liked the most, however was Jensen, a computer and communications wiz, played by Chris Evans, who had a very Wash-like quality to him.
Technically this film did quite well. The music was fantastic — including one of the best uses of Journey I’ve seen in ages, maybe ever — and the sound effects were excellent. The camerawork was interesting, like random slow downs and stuff — but nothing as bad as say, "300" — but it honestly worked to not only draw out the action, but bring you closer to it, if that makes any sense.
Honestly, there wasn’t much I disliked about the film. Again, it stretches plausibility, but one probably knows that going in. The ending raised an eyebrow in some ways that I don’t want to get into for fear of spoiling things, but it didn’t ruin my enjoyment in the slightest, it just left me a tad confused. However, they left it WIDE open for a sequel, so it might be attributed to that.
Overall, if you’re a fan of funny films, action films or are just looking for a fun movie to escape for a while without using too much brain power, "The Losers" should fit the bill nicely. It’s got stuff for the guys (scantily-clad Zoe Saldana, lots of action, humor, fun) and something for the girls (nearly-shirtless Jeffrey Dean Morgan, humor, action, fun) and is a perfect piece of fluff for the Summer movie season, even though it’s Spring. 😉
