The “buddy picture” has been a cinematic mainstay for as long as Hollywood has been in business. Now an offshoot of the genre appears to be making a comeback - the “team picture.”
You know the scenario -- a ragtag bunch of misfits/outsiders bands together as a team to take on an insurmountable foe, and, against all odds, winds up victorious. (Did I miss any clichés?) The team picture reached its height in the 1960s with such films as Kelly’s Heroes, The Devil’s Brigade, The Professionals, The Scalphunters, and the genre’s standard-bearer, The Dirty Dozen. Hell, it can even be argued that one of my personal favorites, The Great Escape, is just a mega-team picture. But after Sam Peckinpah deconstructed it in The Wild Bunch, team pictures seemed to fall out of favor. Instead, it became a comedy mainstay with National Lampoon’s Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds launching an endless stream of B titles where a ragtag bunch of misfits... um, you know the rest. And for those who would argue the Mission Impossible movies are team pictures, I say Tom Cruise does not constitute a team.
It was inevitable that Hollywood would eventually rediscover the team picture. Quentin Tarantino got the ball rolling last fall with his homage to it -- Inglorious Basterds. The movement promises to go into full swing this summer with the “overly-anticipated” A-Team, based on the 1980s television series. But perhaps the best argument for its resurgence is this week’s release, The Losers.
Based upon the DC Comics/Vertigo series written by Andy Diggle and illustrated by Jock, The Losers doesn’t only use all the clichés, it celebrates them by exaggerating them in all their glory. The heroes are uber-heroic, yet cooly flippant. The villains colder than cold, yet cooly flippant. It is the unabashed team picture that Tarantino only hinted at in Basterds.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The five man super-crew is an elite Special Forces unit that contains everyone needed to pull off an impossible mission. Leading the team is Clay (Jeffery Dean Morgan), a.k.a. The Colonel. He is backed up by Jensen (Chris Evans), a goofy computer/communications expert, easygoing Pooch (Columbus Short), who can drive anything and everything on wheels, the soft-spoken sharpshooter Cougar (Oscar Jaenada), who lets his gun do the talking, and tough guy Roque (Idris Elba), the group’s hothead.
The Losers unfolds in the jungles of Bolivia where the team is setting its sites on a drug lord for what it thinks is the U.S. military. But the mission ends in tragedy. Innocent children die. U.S. officials disavow any involvement in the plan. The team barely escapes a fiery death in a helicopter crash and realizes that it has been betrayed by someone named Max --the real power behind their mission. Trouble is, they only know Max as a mysterious and menacing voice on the radio.
Disgraced and presumed dead, The Losers go into hiding. And it is here they stay until Aisha (Zoe Saldana), a sultry spitfire with a mission of her own, tracks them down. In return for killing Max, she’ll sneak the teammates back into the U.S. and clear their names. Of course, the challenge is accepted. And before you can say “action,” our experts are pitted against the ruthless Max (Jason Patric) and racing to stop a plot that threatens to ignite a new world war.
There is no doubt that The Losers is pure comic book. Even the casting is geared towards fan boys. Morgan played The Comedian in last year’s Watchmen. Evans not only played Johnny Storm in The Fantastic Four films, he’s just been cast as the title characters of the upcoming Captain America. Thanks to Star Trek and Avatar, Saldana is the comic’s world “it girl” of the moment. So, fans of these movies shouldn’t be disappointed. All others beware.
As stated, The Losers makes no pretensions about what it is. Instead, it boldly and defiantly throws each and every convention full force in our face. And the tongue is definitely in the cheek throughout. But Sylvain White, working from a script by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, directs with enough swagger to keep things flowing and fresh. His set pieces are crisp and concise. You’re never lost in the action. And overall, there are enough explosives, gunplay, hand-to-hand combat, sadistic violence and general mayhem to more than satisfy the demands. Throw in a hint of sex and skin and the list is complete.
Jason Patric couldn’t be more of a comic book villain if the filmmakers had rendered him in CG. Chewing the scenery every which way, he revels in his snarky evilness. How cold is he? He’s not above shooting a comely assistant because she let an umbrella she is holding blow away and ruin his shade.
But what makes The Losers fun is the camaraderie of the five men. The actors are so relaxed and joke with such ease, the Rat Pack would be envious. Sure, each character is one dimensional, but that dimension is so well defined, it isn’t hard to accept it. And when it’s time, the group jumps into action and becomes a well-oiled machine to get the job done (See, I did miss a cliché!). Teamwork trumps all. And isn’t that what a “team picture” is all about?
The Losers
in comic book form
written by Andy Diggle,
illustrated by Jock
