The Losers

Whew, that was a stinker. The Losers, directed by Sylvain White, is based on a comic book, and those responsible make no effort to elevate it beyond the page. It's a cartoon, through and through.

The title group are five soldiers who participate in black ops. They are in Bolivia to pinpoint a drug dealer's lair for an airstrike, but when they see children inside they try to countermand the orders. A mysterious voice on the other end named Max defies them, and the kids are killed, and the Losers are assumed dead.

Unable to get back to the States, the Losers hang out in Bolivia, when they are contacted by a beautiful and spirited woman (Zoe Saldana), who offers them a chance to get back at Max.

I hated a lot about this movie. The simple notion of them being highly-trained mercenaries, but with a soft spot for children, had me rolling my eyes. But I was totally gone after the head Loser, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, met Saldana. She had an offer for him, but instead they engaged in a full knockdown, drag-out fight, which ended up burning down his hotel. This kind of casual regard to violence, where nobody really gets hurt (one character is shot in both legs yet is still able to walk) seems offensive to me.

Then there's the horrible direction by White. He includes, perhaps because there was a gun to his head, the familiar shot of the Losers walking abreast toward the camera, in slow motion. I would have thought by now that would only be in a parody. Maybe the whole movie was a parody, and I just didn't know it.

The character of Max, played by Jason Patric, is another misstep. He's supposed to be a CIA agent, but he's interested in buying weapon systems. He has a man thrown off a roof in Dubai, and then kills a woman holding a parasol over his head because she momentarily slips. We get it, he's a real bad guy, but there's absolutely nothing about him that rings true.

If someone wants to make a movie from a comic book, I suggest that they try to take what is good about the comic and translate it to the screen, but leaving behind the idiocies of comic books that don't work in movies. The Losers makes no effort to do so.