The B-Team are not Losers
2010 saw a much anticipated movie hit the big screen; it was the update of "The A-Team" and as someone who grew up watching the original TV series I was seriously disappointed by what they had done to it. Ironically 2010 also saw "The Losers" released a movie which whilst having stars did not have the same star power and it was made on a quarter of budget of "The A-Team" yet it is everything that "The A-Team" should have been. Here is a movie which almost wears b-movie as a badge of honour on its sleeve because its intention is to entertain be it through comedy, creativity, action, special effects, corny one liners and pretty much anything else which was part of the original "A-Team" series. As such if like me you felt that 2010's "The A-Team" was a disappointment check out "The Losers" because it captures everything that movie should have been.
Colonel Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan - The Accidental Husband) is the leader of an elite U.S. Special Forces unit in the middle of the Bolivian jungle on a search and destroy mission. That mission goes wrong when they are betrayed by someone on the inside who calls himself Max (Jason Patric) and Clay along with his team Jensen (Chris Evans), Rogue (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Óscar Jaenada) are presumed dead when a chopper sent to get them out is blown up. With a score to settle the guys are joined by the sexy and mysterious Aisha (Zoe Saldana - Avatar) who has her own reasons to get Max who like any evil genius has plans of global terror.
I won't lie as "The Losers" is a movie which is seriously lacking in originality from storyline to action and the various escapades there is a familiarity to it all, even many of the one-liners are familiar. But that familiarity isn't an issue in fact it is part of the reason why the "The Losers" works because rather than having to concern itself with making things easy to understand it just has to deliver entertainment. As such whilst we have a storyline which sees this elite unit betrayed, presumed dead, joining forces with a sexy woman going after an evil genius and throwing a few twists at us along the way it is the perfect vehicle for the comedy, the action, the ingenuity and more comedy.
Now if like me you grew up on the real "A-Team" you will remember that there was the ribbing which went on between the guys and we have plenty of that going on in "The Losers". You will also remember that each person had their own speciality and character trait and we have that again here with Jensen being the comical techie whilst Cougar is the silent but deadly weapons man. Plus of course the real "A-Team" had the charismatic Hannibal and here we have the rough but cool Clay. We also have the comical action creativity, from outrageous action scenes, a mention of "MacGyver" and a general sense of screw reality this is all about escapist fun and it works. To give an example would spoil so much joy but scenes featuring Jensen over the top singing of "Don't stop believing", the finger guns scene and a helicopter lifting an armoured vehicle are all great fun.
And to be honest that is it "The Losers" is a lot of fun with all the actors having fun with their characters be it Jeffrey Dean Morgan delivering cool as Clay or Chris Evans delivering daftness as Jensen. But then there is Jason Patric as the evil Max who has as much fun as everyone else being as tyrannical as possible, ordering people to be killed or fired, which ever is easiest.
What this all boils down to is that "The Losers" came out in the same year as "The A-Team" and ironically does a better job of delivering what was entertaining about the popular TV series than the movie remake did. So if you watched "The A-Team" movie and was as disappointed as I was watch "The Losers" as it is a far better movie.
