No 'Losers' Here

THE LOSERS

Directed by Sylvain White

Runtime: 98 min.

Almost satire, almost fun, The Losers—based on a DC comic book series—follows members of a Special Forces unit double-crossed when on assignment in Bolivia who become rogue agents stopping a criminal mastermind. Such stock material recalls the movie being made in Tropic Thunder crossed with a James Bond flick and live-action version of The Incredibles. It’s also got that Tarantino quotient of snarky violence— even when 25 Bolivian orphans are saved, then killed, in an opening action scene that sets the genre’s standard. It pulls the rug out from under morality.

These former GIs have no ethical code beyond survival, which is why they team up with Aisha (Zoe Saldana), supposedly a distressed third-world damsel, to combat Max (Jason Patric), the man with the Sonic De-Materializer who threatens to destroy the planet. But at least these Losers have cute names—Clay, Jensen, Roque, Pooch and Cougar—and they live up to them. To paraphrase Jensen’s response to Aisha: “What’s wrong with them besides a pants-bursting crush?” The serious answer is that this enjoyable ensemble—the most watchable movie cast since Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla—don’t fulfill the remarkable uptick of genre style and genre-meaning that RocknRolla evidenced. There’s no reexamination of generic routines. Director Sylvain White and cinematographer Scott Kevan (who shot Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race) simply go through the motions.

Their light touch suggests no one took anything seriously; they’re just swifter and funnier than Soderbergh’s Ocean’s franchise—and better photographed, too. There’s a shot of Saldana in red leather pants hiding from gunfire inside a white bathtub in a crimson bathroom that shows the inimitable texture and depth that film still has over digital video.

Less seriously, The Losers is testimony to the power of movie stars because this cast offers eyegasmic distraction from the film’s own foolishness. Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay recalls a second-rate Javier Bardem; Chris Evans as Jensen is given a silly, light hair color and facial hair but fulfills his contractual obligation to strip; Idris Elba as Roque retains his debonair force; Columbus Short as Pooch brings soulful authority to the part anyway; Oscar Jaenada as Cougar does little more than look great. They all pull the rug out from under junk moviemaking.