The premise of the comic book-based action film, The Losers, is a familiar one. Special Forces soldiers framed for an awful crime become fugitives from their former military employer. Hmm . . . sounds a lot like another group coming to movie theaters on June 11, 2010, "a crack commando unit . . . sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit."
The A-Team similarities aside, The Losers does not hold its own as a no-nonsense action flick. In fact, it is mostly nonsense, and the action is nothing special, bordering on boring. Not a completely terrible film, The Losers adds little (if anything) to the genre. One who misses it doesn't miss much.
Plot and Characters of DC Entertainment/Dark Castle's The Losers
The story of The Losers begins in Bolivia. The protagonists — Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Roque (Idris Elba), Jensen (Chris Evans), Pooch (Columbus Short), and Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) — are ordered to target a drug lord's compound for an air strike. However, when the team sees children at the site, they disobey orders and rescue the children. The sinister order giver, Max (Jason Patric), has the evacuation chopper shot down, with all the rescued children exploding with it. The special forces team is unharmed, having given up their seats on the helicopter for the sake of the children.
Clay, the team's leader, and his men toss their dog tags into the wreckage. They are held responsible for the death of the children and are presumed to have died along with them.
Without passports or any means of returning home, the soldiers are stuck in Bolivia. They pass the time taking odd jobs until Aisha shows up (Zoe Saldana). Her motives unknown to the group, Aisha makes a seductive proposition — she offers to facilitate the team's return to America in exchange for their help in killing Max.
Thus, the hunt for Max begins. But it's not long before the hunters become the hunted. And as fugitives, who can the soldiers trust? Can they even trust each other?
Vertigo Comics' The Losers: The Book Is Better Than the Movie
What works in comic books doesn't always translate well onto the big screen (e.g., it will be interesting to see how the upcoming Thor, Captain America, and Lobo films translate, with the latter two set to star Losers' Chris Evans and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, respectively). Although with Vertigo Comics' The Losers, concept was not the problem. Terrible scripts translate into terrible films, and The Losers script is pure trash. The story is loosely held together by background-less characters who mindlessly participate in the film's events, often without cause or reason.
Vertigo Comics is basically DC Comics' line of big-boy superhero tales. Too bad the film it produced was about as sophisticated as a four year-old. With soap opera-like plot development, The Losers tries to keep audiences interested with unspectacular action, sarcasm that's meant but fails to be funny, and corny, unoriginal comic relief (e.g., Chris Evans isn't the first person to "shoot" someone with his fingers. It was even done in Warlock 2, amongst other films).
With Evans playing his usual egocentric-sarcastic character (Push, Cellular, Fantastic Four) being one of the film's few pluses, The Losers has little going for it. Count in the attractive Star Trek and Avatar star, Zoe Saldana, and the remaining pluses are few and far between.
Ironically, The Losers left itself open for a sequel. If any sequel is to be made, it will likely be released straight to DVD.
Jason Parent - Jason Parent earned his Bachelor's Degree in English in 2000 and his Juris Doctorate in 2006. He currently works as an attorney with a ...
