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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

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The Losers

Posted Jul 26, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Jul 26, 2010 at 01:31 PM

The Losers
Genre: Action/Graphic Novel Adaptation
Directed by: Sylvain White
Run time: 97 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: As comic book movies go, “The Losers” is an above-average, entertaining, creatively shot good time.

It’s not nearly as awful as reviews made it out to be, and it didn’t deserve the scant attention it received during its brief theatrical release.

It’s essentially a B-grade rip-off of “The A-Team” with a solid cast, a seriously sizzling hot female lead (Zoe Saldana, who plays rough and will gain instant fanboy geek adoration for her extended fight/sex scene alone) and some nice tweaks to a familiar genre premise.

The story is nothing new: A group of soldiers for hire get double-crossed and left for dead by an evil arms dealer. They forge an uneasy alliance with a beautiful but mysterious woman who promises to finance their revenge plot. The soldiers always seem to be one step ahead, executing complicated plans with ease, even when things go south, and they do. Allegiances are broken, friends are betrayed and the fate of the world rests in the balance.

This is basically every action movie released by The Cannon Group or New Line Cinema in the 1980s and early 1990s, except with better acting and a slightly bigger budget.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the leader of this ragtag bunch of mercenaries, but his supporting cast, namely Chris Evans (who is about to blow up as Captain America), steal the show.

Morgan’s smoldering tough guy glowering also gets largely overshadowed by Jason Patric’s terrific take on the stereotypical bad guy. It’s like he’s channeling Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow, as Patric’s Max is a frilly, fussy, funny global arms dealer who manages to be both dangerous and dainty at the same time. He’s a riot.

Director Sylvain White employs a few too many slow-mo jump edits, but he is more than capable of staging an impressive action scene, and the full-on brawl fight between Saldana and Morgan is both impressively shot and erotic as hell.

Plus, “The Losers” is honestly funny, and not in a forced way. The actors all seem to be having a good time, and as evidenced by a recent living room viewing for friends, so did a decent-sized group of discerning movie fans. Everyone was genuinely surprised at how much they liked the movie.

This one should be at the top of your rental list, and it’s definitely worthy of getting picked up to add to your collection.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Zoe Saldana, hello, hot, hot, hot.
Nudity – Brief.
Gore – Gun violence.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Max, the Go-Fish playing, effeminate war-starting, enfant terrible.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Three featurettes, including “Zoe and the Losers,” “Band of Buddies” and “Action-Style Storytelling”; deleted scene.
On the Web – http://www.the-losers.com/dvd/
Release Date – July 20, 2010