Millionaire War Games
When Special Forces soldier Craig McCenzie (Christian Slater) disobeys orders to go in to a Middle Eastern town to rescue his best friend Mike (Freddy Rodríguez) from a corrupt CIA operative called Mason (Colm Meaney) it leads to his team being broken up and Craig booted out for disobeying orders. 4 years later and struggling to make ends meet running a one man security operation Craig agrees to become part of "Soldiers of Fortune" an organization which offers millionaires the opportunity to experience a real mission whilst protected by elite soldiers. Despite thinking it ridiculous Craig ends up taking a group of millionaires on to an island belonging to a despot and whose security is run by Mason.
There are many sorts of actors in this world but I believe you can split them in to two groups; there are those who see acting as art, who pick the movies they appear in carefully choosing those which intrigue them and then there are those who see acting as a job and so are less concerned about how good a movie will be as long as it pays the bills. It is how I try to explain "Soldiers of Fortune" as this b-movie has a fair few well known actors from Sean Bean and Christian Slater to Colm Meaney and James Cromwell but it is a b-movie and one which knows it is and so plays for laughs with over the top characters and ridiculous situations whilst throwing out terrible dialogue.
What that means is that firstly we are meant to be amused by the eclectic bunch of millionaires and the actors playing them so we have James Cromwell as a man who acts like he is a cowboy and Dominic Monaghan as someone who thinks playing assassin games on his console makes him ready to enter the war zone whilst he has a broken leg. Yes it sounds daft and it is but intentionally so as are the scenes where these men are put through some training and are of course initially useless. The thing is that if you watch "Soldiers of Fortune" expecting comedy then it is amusing but watched expecting anything else it will end up weak.
The trouble is that "Soldiers of Fortune" is a movie with a split personality and the first half as we have these rich guys going through training is heavy on the comedy and is a lot of fun but then when they actually end up in battle it shifts focus slightly and tries to become more action packed. There is still comedy but the shift in tone doesn't quite work because it is all too staged.
What this all boils down to is that "Soldiers of Fortune" is entertaining as long as you are not expecting anything more than amusing for often being bad.
