Superhero Media: The Losers

You want deep cuts? We got deep cuts. The Losers is a film adaptation of a DC Vertigo comic of the same name which is, in turn, based on a Silver Age DC comic of the same name. Even given my wide reading of comics, the only familiarity I have with The Losers is in the prelude of Justice League: New Frontier, where the entire team is killed by dinosaurs. Man, I love comics. The Vertigo update, and, by extension, the film, follows the fortunes of a crack black-ops team, framed for a crime they didn't commit and trying to clear their names. If this sounds like The A-Team, I have another deep cut for you. The Losers came out in the same twelve-month period as The A-Team and The Expendables, all films about groups of gruff men on dangerous missions working outside of a traditional command structure. Oddly, I find The Losers to be the best of the three, but is also the least well known. 

There's not much to The Losers outside of a good cast and some solid action, with Jason Patric, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans and Idris Elba are the big names, but most of the casting is solid. Watching The Losers now is a bit of a trip, as it came out the year before Captain America: The First Avenger, and Chris Evans seems like the last actor anyone would cast to play Cap. The scene where his character, Jensen, has to infiltrate an office building may be the only use of Journey outside of The Sopranos that I can actually stand. The story is pretty bog-standard, with the titular Losers hunting a rogue CIA agent, played by Jason Patric, who last appeared on Lead Capes as Michael in The Lost Boys. Michael is trying to start a major war with sonic doomsday weapons made by South Asian stereotypes and escape with a pile of CIA cash at the same time. 

I like when comics dip into the Spy-Fi pool, especially when, like Nick Fury, they fit alongside superheroes at the same time, but even I found The Losers not worth much more than a casual viewing. Now, if Warner Bros got the gumption together to hire Evans and co now, and have them meet with Shazam and Wonder Woman, maybe even form Checkmate or one of the DC Spy groups. I mean, that's probably never going to happen, but it would be at least worth a reference or a cameo. Certainly more one for the action junkies than the superhero enthusiast, The Losers is still an entertaining watch and I'm shocked just how few people have seen or even heard of it. At the very least, it's good for conversations at parties, along the lines of "before he was Captain America, Chris Evans played a black-ops team member who does bad karaoke and talks about butt stuff". You can't buy that kind of trivia.