Hot on the trail of "Kick-Ass," last week's experiment in vacant cartoon violence, "The Losers" is just as disgustingly wrongheaded.
A team of five black-ops U.S. Special Forces gets set up in a Bolivian double-cross that leaves a helicopter full of brown-skinned children dead. Circumstance suggests the team was killed in an airstrike that brought down the fleeing chopper.
Without the burden of governmental allegiance, the unit of badasses — led by Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Clay — falls under the dubious influence of a convincing mercenary named Aisha (Zoe Saldana) who insists they seek their hot revenge against CIA agent and billionaire baddie Max (Jason Patrick).
Many shots are fired in places like Dubai, Mumbai, and Los Angeles as the team pursues Max, who is trying to buy weapons of mass destruction in order to create a new world order.
Yawn.
The film's politics, like everything else in this effort, are sketchy. Each of the five mercenaries — six if you count Aisha — seems to have sauntered in from a different movie.
Even from a "super action" perspective, "The Losers" is a waste of time.
Rated PG-13. 98 mins.
