1 out of 5

Director: Sylvain White

Good holy banana stink, I was not expecting much, but I was expecting something a bit better than this. Here is where medium-specificity is key – I’m not a big fan of Brian Azzarello’s writing style because it’s too clipped, but for his style of (generally) masculine crime / noir, it works, especially when paired with a blocky artist like Jock, who can cut up the sequences effectively to punctuate the style. I haven’t read The Losers, but I imagine this is fairly accurate to the style of the book, which is why it ultimately falls flat. Lines and pacing that can fly in an issue format seem silly and sloppy on screen, and even though the plot isn’t beyond standard film fare by any means (group of agents are double-crossed and thought dead, so they hunt down their double-crosser), the method by which we’re told this lot are called The Losers and meant to just swallow their skill set just doesn’t translate. The cast seems apropos, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Idris Elba need more silence to chew on – the redeeming aspects are Chris Evans and Columbus Short, who pull off the macho / geeky banter charmingly and actually get some laughs. The rest of it just feels bland. Jason Patric does an okay bad guy, but again, we just are expected to digest the world-changing plans because they’re world-changing plans and that’s what badguys have… Director Sylvain White actually does a good job with his budget to get together some good action scenes, but even those scenes have a too-familiar feel to be effective. Neither smart or stupid, The Losers just doesn’t make any real impact.