It’s a mystery to me why the generic Hollywood action movie hasn’t yet followed the example of the generic porn flick. Back in the ’70s and early ’80s, before the advent of home video, pornography felt obliged to present characters, dialogue and at least the semblance of a plot. Once people could watch porn in their homes, however, they sensibly fast-forwarded past all the abysmal acting and writing, heading straight for the good stuff—and the porn industry, when it became aware of its customers’ habits, pretty much ditched narrative entirely. By the same token, a movie like The Losers exists only to serve up gunfire, explosions and a hot girl in a skimpy outfit. Everything else is superfluous and poorly executed, so why not just get rid of it? There are only so many trips to the restroom and the concession stand a person can make.

The Details

The Losers

Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans.

Directed by Sylvain White.

Rated PG-13. Opens Friday.

Beyond the Weekly

The Losers

IMDb: The Losers

Rotten Tomatoes: The Losers

Here, let me give you the basic exposition, so you can show up 20 minutes late and save yourself at least one nap. The Losers are a Special Forces black-ops squad, each member of which has been assigned the traditional badass nickname and single superficial personality trait: Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is the womanizing leader, Roque (Idris Elba) the brainy demolitions expert, Jensen (Chris Evans) the wisecracking hacker, Pooch (Columbus Short) the “black MacGyver” and Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) the taciturn sniper. When our noble heroes refuse to murder a bunch of Bolivian kids being used as drug mules, their comically evil handler, code name Max (Jason Patric), attempts to take them out, thereby kicking off a rote revenge saga in which the Losers join forces with an extremely lethal CIA “asset” named Aisha (Avatar’s Zoe Saldana), who has her own mysterious (and tedious) reasons for wanting Max dead.

Adapted from a DC/Vertigo comic-book series that reportedly had something relevant to say about the war on terror—Aisha was originally a Muslim character, for example—the film version of The Losers seems content to try to entertain you into a bloody stupor, if not a coma. Director Sylvain White, a music-video vet whose only previous feature was the step-dancing melodrama Stomp the Yard, keeps the pace manic and the volume loud, while screenwriters Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt struggle to fill any brief silences with witless macho banter. Every single moment in which something isn’t exploding, firing or gyrating is wince-worthy. I still don’t understand the point of the film’s Ultimate Weapon, the “snuke” (for “sonic nuke”), which can obliterate entire islands and yet somehow winds up being completely forgotten when matters get personal—as if we give a rat’s ass about the stick figures doing the shootin’ up.

Still, the convoluted and largely nonsensical plot isn’t really the problem—it’s the absence of purpose and imagination that gets you down. That’s especially true given the talent being wasted here. Fans of HBO’s The Wire know how casually commanding Idris Elba can be, and his role here isn’t far removed from that of Stringer Bell—the sensible, questioning lieutenant. But he’s given nothing to do apart from sport a fake scar. Likewise, anyone who saw Columbus Short’s dynamic work as Little Walter in Cadillac Records will be dismayed by how he’s been neutered as the Losers’ designated family man. These roles could have been filled by anybody with functioning limbs, porn stars included. The film’s vaguely unresolved climax implies that an equally mindless and bombastic sequel may already be in the works. I don’t imagine I need to tell you who the real losers will be if that happens.