Movies Reviews

The Losers - Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Apr 23, 2010, 15:23 GMT

An explosive action tale of betrayal and revenge, “The Losers” centers around the members of an elite Special Forces unit sent to the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission.  But the team—Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar—soon find that they have become the target of a deadly double cross, instigated from the inside by a powerful enemy known only as Max. Making good use of the fact that they ...more

The Losers’ high pitched intensity blasts onto the screen and goes for broke for an hour and a half, with nary a second to breathe.  It’s pure adrenaline comic book fun, only mildly violent and coarse, absent sex, and it’s clear who’s good and who’s bad in this send up of jungle politics.

Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Rocque (Idris Alba), Jensen (Chris Evans), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Spain’s Óscar Jaenada) are The Losers, CIA black ops agents left for dead in the Bolivian jungle after a brutal hijack by supposed ‘friendlies’.  They attempt to rescue children in a jungle schoolhouse, but a nasty outcome makes them hell bent on revenge.  These aren’t guys to do anything to, let alone children in their care.

They have no identity or backing as they try to escape Bolivia.  Being presumed dead makes their movements simpler, and their chances at apprehending high tech terrorist, the enigmatic Max (Jason Patric), who engineered the attack against them, are growing dim.  Max is an untouchable cyber villain, white suit and sneering attitude, one of the most heavily guarded men in the world.  Patric is obviously having fun knocking together Dennis Hopper and Nic Cage to create this outlandish, black-hearted cad.

But someone’s on to the Losers and that would be a woman Clay meets in a bar.  Aisha, a CIA spitfire played by Zoe Saldana, is a skilled martial artists and strategist also intent on finding Max.  Her role is warrior like, feisty and as non-traditional as Saldana’s Na’vi Princess in Avatar.  She is able to deliver high energy pizzazz in roles that are really glorified cartoons, and gives them emotional dimension.

Aisha promises the boys that she’ll get them out of Bolivia and back into the US if they help her put a stop to Max.  So they set out for Long Beach, California where guns, gangs and G-Men stand off hard;  Max is somewhere in the middle, orchestrating global doom.

The Losers is action adventure and rings all the proper demographic bells, but at its cartoon heart, it’s not about firepower, corruption and cunning.  It’s about loyalty and friendship.  The Losers are together in battle, in the trenches and that’s a fearsome bond.  For instance, Jensen pretends to shoot two men with his fingers while trying to escape a skyscraper.  Strangely, his imaginary blasts kill them – Cougar is in the skyscraper opposite and fires at the exact moment to ensure Jensen’s getaway.

There’s a sex scene between Aisha and Clay but it’s so modest that it must have been executed with the Hays Code in mind.  There’s all the violence a young video game fan could wish for, but just the faint whisper of sex, means the kids can go to see The Losers in the theatres, with their parents, at least.
There are plenty of cute moves and brotherhood themes, loads of action and things explode, but in the end the film reveals itself as a feel-good, upbeat comic book caper.

35 mm action adventure
Written by Peter Berg, James Vanderbilt, and Andy Diggle, based Diggle’s DC Vertigo Comic
Directed by Sylvain White
Opens: April 23
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, a scene of sensuality and language
Runtime: 98 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English