Playlist: The Losers

I suppose it speaks to the maturation of graphic novels as a source material that our expectations have now become aligned with the mainstream. We've reached the stage where not every adaptation is an event onto itself, much the way audiences grew into their comfort with noir or sci-fi or western stories.

For a convenient example, The Losers is a lesser known comic, and rather pedestrian as far as inventiveness. It's simply a story, and for all the bemoaning the death of originality in Hollywood (it was a suicide), the men with the money are in the business of selling us stories. Right now that resource is in greatest supply in the pages of comic books. Of course, the more they exploit this resource, the more product quality will regress to the mean. Listen, if Christopher Nolan made six movies a year, they're not all going to be good. That's not how it works.

Which isn't a long and winding way of saying The Losers isn't good. It's not, but it's not bad either. It sort of falls into that grey area fattening the middle. It reminded me of a second-tier 80s Schwarzenegger film (think Commando). It's back-up entertainment. Fun filler. If we insist on watching as many movies as we do, we can't also insist on brilliance every time out. You can be picky or you can sleep around. You can't do both. Unless you're rich.

As for the movie, we have a Special Ops squad called The Losers for no explained reason--Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen's Comedian, who looks like Robert Downey Jr.'s older brother), Idris Elba (the great Stringer Bell whose charisma is sadly underused), Chris Evans (who builds on his reputation as someone who makes anything he's in better), Columbus Short (the guy who I didn't like in Armored), and Oscar Jaenada (the silent sniper, but shows enough to bear watching)--who get screwed over by Jason Patric's ultra-hammy CIA psychopath. See, even though The Losers have probably killed countless people through the years, they secretly all have hearts of gold. And, yes, this does sound like The A-Team.

Now, in order to get back their good names as professional murderers, they team up with the unnaturally attractive (almost annoying so) Zoe Saldana who just so happens to have her own anti-Patric agenda. A lot of punch-shoot-boom follows. There is a very cool scene with Evans (of course) shooting security guards with his fingers.

My only real gripe is with director Sylvain White, who you might not know from anything. Unlike those 80s action films, White cannot just let the ridiculousness of the story carry the show. He has to "direct." It's over-stylized to the point of distraction as if White was determined to go upside our heads with his bag of tricks like Sean Penn and his pillowcase full of soda cans in Bad Boys. There's even a slo-mo shot of the whole gang walking which was cool as hell when Tarrantino did it and funny as hell when Swingers did it. 15 years ago.