The Losers
With a touch of the heist, loyalty testing and very real and flawed personalities, there is a lot more to this story than merely an inflated comic book caper full of action sequences.

There has been a plethora of ‘films based on comic books’ recently that for those of us not avid comic fans can be forgiven for getting a tad blasé about what to watch. Can we appreciate the adaptation of this graphic novel storyline as it stands, without prior knowledge of Andy Diggle’s artwork? In The Losers case, yes we can. It stands alone as an enjoyable, action-packed and slicker ‘copycat’ of The A-Team – hence it’s (unfortunate) nickname of ‘The B-Team’ – that has wisely been billed to run in cinemas before the former gets its 2010 revamp fairly shortly. This story may run along the same lines as the former, with a bunch of renegade ex-military men with big hearts going back to finish off a job and helping someone along the way, but this moody bunch of Losers are a little rawer, scarred and don’t suffer fools gladly. They are also easier on the eye, especially with the one girl in tow, Aisha, played by Avatar’s sexy Zoe Saldana who moves like Kill Bill’s Bride, but has an equally intriguing, fragile persona about her that allows us to warm to her plight and humanise these cartoon-based characters a little more.

With all its big explosions, more in place in big blockbusters, it comes as no surprise that Joel Silver is behind the action – and he doesn’t disappoint. There are some exhilarating carnage scenes that include slow-mo tracking, accumulating in the taking down of a small light aircraft in a Die Hard vein, with the thunder ball behind our anti-hero Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) barely touching him as he calmly walks away. These thrilling escapades, all done in the most stylish of fashions, are set to raise the temperature as the uberly good-looking cast that includes Dean Morgan, Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short and Óscar Jaenada – like an advert for diversity in the Army – do their thing and do it well, without raising a sweat, and seemly thoroughly enjoying themselves, which makes it infectious viewing that doesn’t take itself too serious and is almost laid back in parts. Like a rock music video one of the most beautiful scenes is Clay and Aisha’s first passionate encounter, although just why they knock ten bells out of each other is anyone’s guess?

The comic value comes from Evans’s character, the lady-loving geek called Jensen who makes us cringe and snigger at his feeble attempts at picking up women – very much mirroring his comic book character. Admittedly, these pong of cheese and cliché but serve as welcome relief from the serious stuff of tallying up the body count of Columbian drug lords and their mercenary men. But it is Jason Patric in the role of the arch baddie, a US government-retained businessman called Max and megalomaniac who is the absolute scream throughout, having deranged paddy after paddy in a sadistic, semi-camp way. Patric is just perfect in such a role that we really hope to see him embrace similar ones in the future in the much the same way.

With a touch of the heist, loyalty testing and very real and flawed personalities, there is a lot more to this story than merely an inflated comic book caper full of action sequences, including some hilarious, matter-of-fact banter in the midst of the chaos and a thrilling pace that prevents waning interest. The Losers has exactly what action aficionados want to keep them keen and stands as a nice bridge between the action and comic genres, so much so that fans of the latter can breathe a sigh of relief that director Sylvain White and co have stayed as faithful to the book as possible, without alienating other potential audiences. Its main problem is it’s very much like other films before, so unless you are a fan of the comic or one of the actors, it’s hardly going to be memorable down the line – it merely serves as a fix, until the next action flick comes along.