Not a Loser of a flick!

The Losers

Director - Sylvain White

Starring – Jeffery Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, and Jason Patric
MPAA – Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality and language.

“The Losers” is one of the better graphic novel movies to come out. It is exciting, funny, and holds its own against the onslaught of summer garbage dumped on filmgoers this year. Pitting this movie up against last year’s “GI-Joe” I would watch “The Losers” ten times before I suffered through GI-Joe again. In fact I would definitely watch this film over “Knight and Day” and “Prince of Persia”, two films I have recently reviewed. I liked “The Losers” a lot. Not because it was an amazing action thriller like the Jason Bourne movies, or because it was as clever and as witty as “Ocean’s 11”. I had fun because it was an old fashioned action film that didn’t try to do anything more than make me laugh.



I was reminded of the camaraderie held between the players in “Ocean’s 11.” “The Losers” comprises five Special Forces officers; each man having his own specialty; electronics, weapons, and the like. They each have witty parts and they trade banter back and forth in general good humor. The five men are all good at being funny and are very cool. They trade jokes and insults as they sprint across roof-tops firing large guns, destroying all the bad guys in their way; and it all works in a fun stylized action movie. Each man had his own character, different than the others. This kept this film interesting as we saw the brotherhood of these renegade soldiers.

The story goes like this: these soldiers go into Bolivia to take out a drug dealer, they paint the target with a laser and the house is set to be blown to smithereens. Then the Loosers see there are kids in the house and the defy orders to rescue the kids. However this pits them against an unknown villain named Max. This film marks the beginning of the hunt for Max.



Speaking of Max, he is played by a hilarious Jason Patric; whom I am convinced had way too much fun playing the villain. Of course he was the cookie cutter evil psycho who is offhandedly kills employees and enemies alike. But he is so much funnier than most villains we see in these small action flicks.

I also enjoyed the cinematography in this film. Any time a movie puts extra effort into creating a visually appealing picture I always take note. It is not difficult to achieve this picturesque quality in films, and “The Losers” shows that. Yes there is plenty of CGI action, but it is very minimal compared to others of the genre. Most of the movie is just good old flying bullets and wise cracks, and I loved it. “The Losers” gets a 7.5 out of 10 in my book. It was not an exceptional movie, but it was so much fun to watch.



Sex/Nudity – 6 out of 10 – There are two sex scenes, one is prolonged and we see a woman in her bra and panties, and then just her bare back. We see women in swimsuits, a lot of cleavage, and there are few sexual jokes and references.

Violence/Gore – 7 out of 10 – BOOM, KAPOW, SMAK! There is a whole bunch of gun fighting and shooting; people die, things blow up, and there is almost no blood accompanying it. There are a lot of fist fights as well, and these come with the accustomed bruises and bloody noses, but in general the gore is limited but there is a plethora of action.

Profanity – 5 out of 10 – There is 1 F-word, and about 30 or so obscenities and name calling with about 15 religious exclamations.