By Peter Covino

Entertainment Editor

The Losers wants so badly to be the next Pulp Fiction or some other hip action/comedy drama.

And for about the first hour or so, it fails miserably.

Jokes misfire badly, bombs explode and vehicles crash, all very loudly and in direct competition with a musical soundtrack that is both inappropriate, ill-conceived and mistimed.

The Losers doesn’t take itself seriously, which is probably the best thing that can be said about a film about five American G.I.s who are trying to win back their name and honor. But director Sylvain White apparently thinks The Losers comic book heritage pretty much means just about anything and everything will work so nothing is left out in this barrage of bombs, bullets and boorish behavior.

The Losers are the next A-Team (yet another TV series coming to the big screen). There’s Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the team’s unofficial leader; and Roque (Idris Elba); and Cougar (Oscar Jaenada) and Jenson (Chris Evans). Evans (The Fantastic Four, Push) apparently just used his role here as a pretty-boy/science techie as a warm-up for his next big screen appearance, Captain America.

He also is featured in arguably the film’s best scene — where he is humorously disguised as a Journey-singing bike messenger to gain access to a top security office building.

Our heroes spend pretty much the entire film trying to clear their names after an operation in Bolivia goes really wrong and a bunch of orphans are killed in a helicopter. It isn’t their fault, but the guys take the blame.

Jason Patric plays the bad guy Max, who would seem to be a throwback stereotype euphemism for all things wrong in this country from the George W. Bush era. He is rich, wants to be richer and wants to conquer the world. He sneers a lot and would twist his handlebar mustache — if he had one.

The wild card in The Losers is Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) who plays free agent Aisha. She is after Max and wants him dead. But she also can’t decide what side she is on either, which is supposed to keep the audience guessing up until the film’s big climax.

Director White and company rush through this uneven film with reckless abandon with everybody already thinking “sequel.”

The plot really doesn’t work, but by the last half-hour or so, the characters become familiar enough that The Losers seems less of a losing proposition. But it only seems that way.

A fool and his $10 are easily parted wasting money on The Losers.

Critic's rating: D

The Losers is Rated PG 13

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The winners have been announced from last week’s Florida Film Festival.

Feature films:

Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature was Winter’s Bone, directed by Debra Granik.

Special Jury Award for Narrative Filmmaking to Homewrecker, directed by Brad and Todd Barnes.

Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature to Don’t Let Me Drown, directed by Cruz Angeles.

Audience Award for Best International Feature The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, directed by Leanne Pooley.  

Documentaries:

Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature How to Fold a Flag, directed by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein.

Special Jury Award for Documentary Filmmaking Best, Worst Movie, directed by Michael Paul Stephenson.

Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature Racing Dreams, directed by Marshall Curry.

Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short, The Poodle Trainer, directed by Vance Malone.