Mercenaries (2011)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Rather than watching this film, I felt as if i was being subjected to it. I have seen thousands of film, both high and low budget, and I can quite honestly say this is one of the worst I have watched. The only thing more terrible than the script were the actors' performances. Although, the actors aren't fully to blame as the casting choices were the true root cause of the film's problems. Not one character was believable as having served in the SAS or any military unit, they couldn't properly hold weapons or implement any semblance of military tactics.Beside from the countless military inaccuracies; the plot was unoriginal, unbelievable and totally boring. Avoid this movie, it is absolute rubbish!

I am a film reviewer so frankly I don't care that the lead actor, Mr Fucilla, is, according to the Guardian newspaper, a merchant banker who believes he can bypass training as an actor and has bought bought his way into a project. I don't care that the director was a unit driver called Barry Leonti (according to IMDb) and reinvented himself as a director, called Paris. I don't care about the fact that MERCENARIES advertises itself (on Wikipedia) as being shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 when it wasn't (I was there and there is no official record of it in any competition). What I care about is what I see when I pay my money and watch what is on the big or small screen in front of me. And unfortunately, in this case, it would not be an exaggeration to say it is an absolutely unwatchable mish mash mess. The starting problem is the fact that no attempt has been made to put it in the right geographical setting. Even low budget films need to make an effort, though. Srebenica? This has clearly been set in the local park. This in itself is bad but when you throw a clearly unconsidered plot and script in to the mix then you have problems. Derivative, would be putting it mildly. Where is there any attempt at being original. Low budget is no excuse for making no effort. Quite the opposite - it is the absolute opportunity to do something original. Clearly, Billy Zane, sticks out like a sore thumb, bring the pay check face on the DVD cover (though, as many reviewers have pointed out - even he has disowned the film by refusing to be on the DVD cover). The dialogue just seems to have been thrown together and the acting is a mix of amateurism and half-heartedness - it's difficult to tell what could have been made of this if the script had not been so bad.Ultimately it is a sad old mess and reflects really badly on the struggling UK film industry. This is not what is needed in the industry, it will just drive investors further away from investing in films. What a sad, missed opportunity. Let's hope this film can be quietly forgotten and the UK film industry can provide us with some low budget, quality, original films again.

Being a Producer/Director of Music Documentary's I find it incredible that in what is a poor financial climate that a film like this can get the funding to have been made. This film is nothing short of dreadful, I feel sorry for the Actors there performances will have not done anything for the future careers. As for the direction I have seen better home movie productions from children, it looks like the outside location filming was made in somebody's garden, the interior shots some cheap and nasty set built in a warehouse. So to sum it up please spend your well earned money elsewhere or watch it and see what a waste of time and money this was. Thank you

After watching so many great special forces movies, all we expect from such a movie is that it to be an action packed explosive one. with that expectation I started watching this movie and I was totally disappointed.the plot is simple, a guy takes over a country and threatens the region. so the good guys have to go and take care of it.instead of sending the army they decide to send a bunch of ex SAS mercenaries. the actors don't at all look like ex SAS soldiers. instead they look a bit too girlish to portrait such tough characters.that is enough to kill the mood. their acting isn't strong enough at all to convince the audience that this is going to be something fun to watch.even the dialogues lack the punch . instead you feel like shooting yourself for choosing to watch this. sometimes the muscle flash of the gun just blinds you.give the movie a cheap look. you see hardly any action that is normal to a movie of this kind. All i can say is that it's lacks everything a good action movie should have.P.S. The actors in the movie don't look tough at all like the ones in the poster.