Solidrariol
Am I Missing Something?
Helloturia
I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.
Sarita Rafferty
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Seth_Rogue_One
I almost didn't watch this movie, because even though I do like Christian Slater a lot his recent movies have for the most of them not been that great.ASSASSIN'S RUN (2012), PLAYBACK (2012), THE POWER OF FEW (2013) and STRANDED (2013) were flat out horrible, so imagine my surprise when I turned this on with a rating of 4.3/10 on here and I found myself actually enjoying it!I mean sure it's flawed in logic and the characters are a little one- dimensional BUT it's good b-movie popcorn entertainment and sometimes that's all you need.A pretty impressive list of cast as well, Christian Slater is joined by Ving Rhames, James Cromwell, Colm Meany, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan and Freddy Rodriguez... And although perhaps none of them make their finest performances of their lifetimes they do seem like they enjoyed making the movie, even Christian Slater (!) and it got some good kills and explosions etc so I can't complain about the visuals either.So yeah overall, nothing that will blow you away but dumb good fun regardless.
Comeuppance Reviews
Craig McCenzie (Slater), is a former Special Ops soldier and military-grade badass, despite the fact that his own name seems to be spelled incorrectly. Hired by a mysterious woman named Cecilia (Korostyshevskaya), he's reluctantly pulled into the time-honored "one last op" when he's forced to take a bunch of "weekend warriors" on a mission to take down an evil baddie named Mason (Meaney). Just why McCenzie needs to take inexperienced non-soldiers on an extremely dangerous mission wasn't clearly explained. As part of a combat-simulation vacation called, obviously, "Soldiers of Fortune", rich knowitalls bicker and squabble while McCenzie rolls his eyes and tries his best to whip them into combat readiness. Among his new charges are a young video game designer named Sin (Monaghan), a rich playboy named Dimidov (Bean), an African arms dealer named Grimaud, but nicknamed "The Grim Reaper" (Rhames), obnoxious Wall Streeter Vanderbeer (Bewley) and rich older man Haussman (Cromwell). Can this wacky cast of characters work together and get the job done? Soldiers Of Fortune is a movie out of sync with its time and place. It seems like it would be more comfortable sharing video store shelf space next to Desert Thunder (1999) and Stealth Fighter (1999) in the 90's. The only thing that really ties it to the 2000's are a couple of Bin Laden references (making this movie the original Zero Dark Thirty, 2012). Our beloved Christian Slater could have played the same role even then, though his beard-stubbly grizzledness does add much to his leadership abilities. He's not Gleaming the Cube anymore, he's "Action Slater" as you've never seen him before. He does a lot of running, jumping, rolling around, and shooting people, and presumably killing people, with a weapon that looks suspiciously like a paintball gun. He also spouts a lot of silly, country-fried aphorisms that wouldn't be out of place as Toby Keith lyrics. Despite the impressive cast overall, this movie is clearly carried by Slater on his back much like a wounded enemy combatant in a war zone.Important things you need to know about Soldiers Of Fortune: 1. visually, it looks like it was produced by Nu-Image. 2. We think it was supposed to be a comedy, so imagine if Nu-Image tried to make a movie filled with yuks. The result is a film filled with dumbness and mediocrity, but you already knew that, didn't you? Even the title hints at the lack of originality within. You'd think the non-Slater cast would make the water rise and float this particular boat, but no, it's a bunch of stereotyped roles that don't really inspire the viewer with any real emotions. Monaghan plays the young punk whippersnapper obsessed with video games, Rhames does the African accent he did in Dangerous Ground (1997), Bewley plays the obvious, expected cliché of the heartless money broker, and Bean and Cromwell swim against the tide and do their best, but fail to leave a real impression.But sometimes the clichés work in the movie's favor, such as the classics "Ex-Special Forces", "One Last Op", and walking away from an explosion in slow motion. Not forgetting of course about the final confrontation between Slater and Meaney (I never figured I'd have to type that...) where we see some prime examples of not just Slater-Fu, but Colm Meaney-Fu. Yeah. It also features the same song from Beatdown (2010), Tommy Fields' immortal "Wildfire In the Streets" (which is kind of an odd choice, as there are no real "streets" to speak of here, it's mainly an island setting, nor is there a wildfire, but maybe there's a cheap bank of songs DTV producers can pull from. Tommy Fields truly is the Robert Tepper of the DTV era). So just to recap what was said earlier, Soldiers of Fortune is typical video store fodder in the era of no video stores.
Robert E Gould
The actors in this movie have all been in big box office successes' so whatever possessed them to think this one would be a good career move? I fortunately watched this on a PVR set and was able to fast forward every time I felt vomit in my mouth. It is advertised as an adventure comedy, you need to take this description with a pinch of salt, which incidentally will help with the bad taste it will leave you with after viewing. It was a thoroughly poor and disappointing movie, bad action sequences, awful acting and terrible special effects. The movie budget is quoted at around $8 million and it made $1,572,040 at the box office...my question is how come it made so much?
Dark Jedi
This is one ludicrously silly movie and not really in a good way. The basic story is rather silly to start with. A bunch of rich people with zero combat experience and huge egos gets themselves inserted into a combat situation for thrills. The "company" providing the service is actually a bunch of rebels trying to fund their operations. As I said rather silly. As an action comedy it could have worked though.Unfortunately the implementation is equally ridiculous. It is obvious that the director is as null on actual military operations as the rich thrill-seekers in the movie. Already the first action sequences were the, supposedly skilled captain McCenzie is introduced, are downright laughable with the captain running around like a monkey shooting people left right and center.The film, unfortunately, continues very much in this style. There is not a shred of realism or meaningful story in the entire movie. There are some fun or otherwise enjoyable scenes which saved my movie evening and saved this movie from getting a one-star rating but that is just barely. One of the reasons I decided to watch this movie was due to actors like Sean Bean and sure enough, they perform as well as can be expected with the rather louse material that they are given to work with.Not a movie that I would recommend to anyone.
