The Losers

French director Sylvain White, the man behind recent titles I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer and Stomp the Yard, presents us with The Losers, an adaptation of the comic book of the same name. Boasting an ensemble cast of B-list actors, the film came out of nowhere, impressed no one and made nothing in the way of profit. An action film, you can still catch it at the cinema or if you wish you can put the agony off for a short while as it will be coming to bargain bins near you very shortly. As a 12A film expect to see moderate violence, pretty clean language, an obligatory boner killing sex scene, and a cock fight – nice… As a light-hearted comic book romp expect to see cardboard cut-out villains drop like flies in an attrition rate almost comparable with that of the bullets themselves – fans of idiots standing in macho poses firing guns at nothing in particular should be delighted to waste nearly two hours of their life in this entertainment void.

The Losers are a group of US Special Forces soldiers led by Franklin Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and comprised thusly: techie Jake Jensen (Chris Evans), dog-of-war William Roque (Idris Elba), sharpshooter Carlos ‘Cougar’ Alvarez (Óscar Jaenada), driver Linwood ‘Pooch’ Porteous (Columbus Short) and new recruit Aisha al-Fadhil (Zoe Saldana). The film tells the story of their betrayal by nasty CIA man Max (Jason Patric) and henchman Wade (Holt McCallany). The plot isn’t really important because it is devoid of any basic intrigue or realism. The sole function of the storyline is to get the characters from one action set-piece to another. Basically it is the A-Team only the crew decide to devote all their time and effort on taking revenge on the man that betrayed them rather than helping random small-town folk and creating unlikely weapons and escape plans. There is also betrayal thrown in for good luck, as well as mystery behind this new girl Aisha, but I doubt anyone seriously cares.

It is important for anyone considering watching this film to grasp just as mind-crushingly boring this movie is. I yawned constantly through the film, and thinking back to sitting there in the theatre watching it I now also yawn involuntarily. Nothing happens in this film whatsoever, and there is a whole load of nothing which happens. I saw this after watching Tooth Fairy and it made that look like Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. The writing is hilariously awful and the action is a joke. There is jerky camera movements and stop-start editing galore here. The action does improve as the film goes on, but that really says little.

Probably the biggest flaw in the film is how punishingly unfunny it all is. The comedy is literally non-existent. Ask yourself: is saying “Who wants to be a billionaire?” to a bunch of Indians funny? If you don’t understand the logic behind that joke go and watch Slumdog Millionaire. Here is another ‘classic’ line: “Did you know that cats can make one thousand different sounds and dogs can only make ten? Cats, man. Not to be trusted.” Now with comic-relief like that who needs a cock fight?

There are no redeeming features to this movie. There is no reason for anyone anywhere ever to put themselves through the torture of this experience. This film is an insult to the movie business, art in general and to humanity as a whole. This isn’t just the B-Team; it’s the F-Team – F standing for Fucking awful.