Soldiers of Fortune (2012)

Simply Perfect

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The film opens with Craig McCenzie (Christian Slater) leading a secret reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan. With the life of a fellow soldier (Freddy Rodríguez) in danger, Craig ignores orders to save him from our own CIA man Carter Mason (Colm Meaney). Rather than get a medal, they are dishonorably discharged from the service. They have fallen on hard times.Our heroes are then recruited by the lovely Cecelia (Oksana Korostyshevskaya) to lead a group of mercenaries to act as freedom fighter for a mineral wealthy island known as Snake Island (Black Sea?) against a ruthless colonel (Gennadi Vengerov) his equally ruthless daughter (Sarah Ann Schultz) and his arch enemy Carter Mason. However there is a catch to this whole thing. Not only must he free the island but do so while escorting 5 millionaires who want to "play soldier" for various reasons. They are funding the revolution. Thus a play on words of "Soldiers of Fortune."The 5 guys are:Dimidov (Sean Bean): He is originally from the island. He is in the mining business and already knows how to handle weapons.Grimaud aka Grim Reaper (Ving Rhames): An African general who knows how to fight. He sold the colonel weapons and he is late on his payment.Sin (Dominic Monaghan): Video game designer who makes violent video games. His psychologist recommended reality. For added measure he has a broken leg.Haussman (James Cromwell): He has done everything in life. His goal is to die so his kids get his fortune and not his wife (Ekaterina Suslova) known only as #5.Vanderbeer (Charlie Bewley): Runs a successful Wall Street hedge fund that made money when everyone lost. He just wants the bragging rights.Of course things don't go as planned and Christian Slater must save the day against overwhelming odds uncovering all kinds of schemes and plot twists. Unfortunately the plot remained as simple as a Steven Seagal movie. The film had potential but quickly falls off the edge. Slater being the main character was a stroke of bad casting as I don't see him convincing in this role.PARENTAL GUIDE; F-bomb, no sex, no nudity.

American soldiers Captain Craig McCenzie (Christian Slater) and Mike Reed (Freddy Rodriguez) crossed CIA agent Carter Mason (Colm Meaney) and get run out of the military for it. They are recruited as protection for an unusual project. A private company offers rich amateur patrons the opportunity to be real soldiers of fortune. In eastern Europe, a military dictator has taken control of an island with the help of Mason. The rich customers are metals magnate Roman St John (Sean Bean), arms dealer Grimaud Tourneur (Ving Rhames), video game designer Tommy Sin (Dominic Monaghan), and telcom CEO Sam Haussmann (James Cromwell).There are great award-winning actors involved in this. That is the only compelling aspect because this movie is unrelenting B-movie. I don't know how much money they paid to lure these great actors to do a bad movie. The production is weak. The style is weak and old. There is nothing these great actors could do to save this.

This is not a great movie by any means, you can tell that within the first 2 minutes of viewing, yet as many times as I thought, I really need to shut this off, there was just something about it. Ultimately I managed to stick with it until the end.I liked the cast which helped. Everyone involved was familiar to me, and (for whatever reason?) giving their best to a B-grade mess. Faces among the team include; James Cromwell, Sean Bean, Ving Rhames -with a decent African accent, Dominic Monaghan and Freddy Rodriguez.'Soldiers' is also a bit of a throwback film to the action movies of the 1980's which was fun; lots of big bright explosions, excess of bullets which never hit the good guys and always find their mark first time on the bad guys who usually fall off something, along with a body count (to the faceless bad guy army) of epic proportions.The story follows Captain Craig McKenzie, (Christian Slater) a former U.S special forces soldier (and user of the cool Captain Kirk roll) who is hired to protect a group of wealthy people wanting to experience the thrills of actual military affairs and warfare. The misfit team of millionaires get more than they bargained for when the "fake" mission becomes real, trapping them in enemy territory.Ultimately this is a one of those perfect hangover films, as in I can't get off the couch and don't want to think too hard. Oh and the closing credits are super awesome with hard rock music and in your face exploding pictures of the cast. 8/7/15

This movie is full of great actors. I like Sean Bean, Ving Rhames, and believe it or not Christian Slater as well.The opening sequence is so laughable, I thought it was on purpose. I expected that this sequence was some sort of staged military exercise the rich guys were participating in. DId Christian Slater really do dive rolls while taking out bad guys?? There wasn't one iota of realism, the weapon was wrong, the uniform was wrong, and why was CS taking on a Taliban village solo?Later, the entire group of mercenaries have a beach party...on the same tiny island that the bad guys are on. Complete with bonfire and shooting pistols in the air. Really?It got worse from there. I didn't think it was possible to combine the talents of A list actors and make a movie worse than a B movie. I wanted to like this movie. Really I did. After the first 20 minutes I considered turning it off, but then decided to watch it to see how bad it was. Turns out it wasn't "so bad it was good". It went past that and was "so bad it was actually bad"The premise wasn't too horrible and this story could have been OK. I don't expect we will see this director again.