Step 1: Don’t be a Loser, Part I. After watching this stylized comic-book action flick and admitting you thoroughly enjoyed yourself, you won’t feel like a Loser at all.
Step 2: Don’t be a Loser, Part II. Based on a comic-book, The Losers revolves around an elite U.S. Special Forces unit – with nicknames like Clay (Jeffery Dean Morgan), Jensen (Chris Evans), Roque (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Óscar Jaenada) – who all have special skills and are, of course, far from being losers. When a mission in Bolivia goes wrong, they find themselves on the short end of the stick and are presumed dead. Which is a good thing, cause when they decide to go after the ruthless dude (Jason Patric), who orchestrated the lethal betrayal against them, they are going need all the cover they can get – which includes the help of a sexy and beautiful operative named Aisha (Zoe Saldana), who may or may not be a femme fatale. So, the guys remain deep undercover while tracking the heavily-guarded dude, hell bent on embroiling the world in a new high-tech global war.
Step 3: Don’t act like a Loser. The boys are great together. They’ve got that camaraderie one needs to make a movie like this work. Morgan (Watchmen) is scruffy and sexy, the real leader; Elba (Obsessed) plays the disgruntled grumbler; Short (This Christmas) is the badass driver/mechanic, who’s also the only family man; Spanish actor Jaenada is the strong, silent and deadly-with-the-sniper-rifle type; and there’s Evans (Fantastic Four), the snarky comic relief egghead who nearly steals the show. It’s going to be good fun seeing him play Captain America. As for the female of the group, Saldana is really making a name for herself as a kick-ass heroine with Star Trek, Avatar and now this. She makes it believable. Patric goes a tad over the top with his bad guy, but it’s nice to see him onscreen again.
Step 4: Don’t direct like a Loser. Stomp the Yard‘s Sylvain White tries his hand at full-blown action, and while he falls into some of the same footsteps of other gritty and campy actioners (Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces comes to mind), he makes The Losers his own. There’s the right combo of slow-mo kill shots, fast cuts and up close, shaky documentary style camera angles — the key to all action movies these days.
Level of difficulty in watching The Losers: Totally easy. Let’s hope The A-Team is just as good because it looks like it’s basically the same movie.