Rating: *(*)
Review Date: 9/3/11
Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoë Saldana, Chris Evans,
Jason Patric
Awful! After seeing Zoë Saldana's inspired performance in "Colombiana" (2011), I decided to check out her previous action role in "The Losers." The optional two-star rating is begrudgingly granted due to her unflinching intensity and rock solid conviction, while the rest of the film is utter crap. It's been a while since I've had a film insult and offend me this badly, and it leaves a bad aftertaste.
Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) heads up a special ops team that gets framed for a gruesome operation in Bolivia by a megalomaniacal villain named Max (supremely irritating Jason Patric). Presumed dead, he makes plans to get his team back to The States and get revenge, and a mysterious woman named Aisha (super hot Zoë Saldana) provides the means for doing just that. She also has a score to settle with Max, and hires Clay's team to take him out. Loyalties are tested and friends are betrayed, but it's all for naught.
Unfortunately, the film is a mess, the dialog is atrocious, and all of the characters are instantly unlikable. But nothing can prepare you for Jason Patric's incredibly abrasive and offensive portrayal of Max. Whenever he shows up, the film sinks to new lows of awfulness. He's not even a good villain - just an extremely annoying and stupid one. Zoë Saldana is very sexy and handles her actions scenes very well, but her character is unfortunately oversexualized to the point of absurdity. The camera work is terrible and the editing is appalling. Seriously people, the queasy-cam has got to go! It's bad enough to watch it on TV, and I can only imagine the stomach-churning effects it would have had in the theater. The action scenes are occasionally entertaining, with the highlight being a full contact beatdown between Clay and Aisha in a burning hotel room. However, despite all the violence, gunplay, and mayhem in the film, it's surprisingly bloodless and the adolescent mentality feels like a longwinded episode of "The A-Team." A disappointing waste of time and talent.