The Losers (15.)
Directed by Sylvain White.
Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Jason Patric, Columbus Short. 97 mins
It’s about a 5 man undercover CIA squad (but a nice, decent, risk-their-lives-for-children CIA squad), each of whom has their own specialised skills, who are betrayed on a mission and set up for a crime they didn’t commit. Did someone mention The A-Team?
Although this zippy little number should take much of the wind out of the sails of Fox’s big A Team* this globe trotting action movie is more like a proper Mission Impossible film, one where a group of experts combine their various skills to fulfil a mission that is impossible rather than one where Tom Cruise prances around being the all-conquering hero.
It’s callous and shallow but it has a bright cast and a few shafts of mordant, morbid humour. It reminded me of that brief late 90s period when Bruckheimer movies melded a bit of wit and style to those regulation action movie beats. (Actually that “period” was probably just Con Air.)
Morgan and Evans both seem to be reanimating their characters from recent superheroes romps: Evans’s characters is exactly the same as in The Fantastic Four while Morgan, looking like Raul Julia reincarnated as George Clooney, channels some of his Comedian persona from Watchmen into his performance as the squad leader.
After Star Trek and Avatar, it’s a bit of a comedown to see Saldana in this role. She’s supposed to be equally badass as the boys, firing rockets and handlings heavy artillery, but it’s really no more than a hot bod role. Alarmingly she’s almost as thin in human form as she was as a Na’vi.
The standout performance though Jason Patric as the preposterously ruthless baddie, Max. He’s American Psycho Patrick Bateman promoted to Bond villai. He’s a parody of the pernickety overbearing boss who blames everything on his subordinates; he even micromanages his harem of bikini clad dolly birds.
Patric really is the lack-of-heart of the movie. Like him the film is all America Uber Alles with the rest of the world – represented by some Goodness Gracious Me Indians – filling the roles as target practise or comedy stooges.
The Losers skips along under the comfort blanket of its glib dismissal of any kind of humanity: when the two leads make out, their sex scene is effectively her giving him a lap dance.
*Or maybe not. It flopped.
The Losers (15.)
Directed by Sylvain White.
Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Jason Patric, Columbus Short. 97 mins
It’s about a 5 man undercover CIA squad (but a nice, decent, risk-their-lives-for-children CIA squad), each of whom has their own specialised skills, who are betrayed on a mission and set up for a crime they didn’t commit. Did someone mention The A-Team?
Although this zippy little number should take much of the wind out of the sails of Fox’s big A Team* this globe trotting action movie is more like a proper Mission Impossible film, one where a group of experts combine their various skills to fulfil a mission that is impossible rather than one where Tom Cruise prances around being the all-conquering hero.
It’s callous and shallow but it has a bright cast and a few shafts of mordant, morbid humour. It reminded me of that brief late 90s period when Bruckheimer movies melded a bit of wit and style to those regulation action movie beats. (Actually that “period” was probably just Con Air.)
Morgan and Evans both seem to be reanimating their characters from recent superheroes romps: Evans’s characters is exactly the same as in The Fantastic Four while Morgan, looking like Raul Julia reincarnated as George Clooney, channels some of his Comedian persona from Watchmen into his performance as the squad leader.
After Star Trek and Avatar, it’s a bit of a comedown to see Saldana in this role. She’s supposed to be equally badass as the boys, firing rockets and handlings heavy artillery, but it’s really no more than a hot bod role. Alarmingly she’s almost as thin in human form as she was as a Na’vi.
The standout performance though Jason Patric as the preposterously ruthless baddie, Max. He’s American Psycho Patrick Bateman promoted to Bond villai. He’s a parody of the pernickety overbearing boss who blames everything on his subordinates; he even micromanages his harem of bikini clad dolly birds.
Patric really is the lack-of-heart of the movie. Like him the film is all America Uber Alles with the rest of the world – represented by some Goodness Gracious Me Indians – filling the roles as target practise or comedy stooges.
The Losers skips along under the comfort blanket of its glib dismissal of any kind of humanity: when the two leads make out, their sex scene is effectively her giving him a lap dance.
*Or maybe not. It flopped.
