Mercenaires

A team of Navy SEALs discover an underwater treasure in a Bosnian lake. And then they will go for it. The actors are all unknown, except J.K. Simmons as their boss and Ewen Bremner, atypically not really there to provide the comic relief. The latter is the responsibility of Simmons, and as in every role, ever, he's great at it, with his sarcasm and dry wits and all. Amazingly, at the moment of writing this in the early morning of September the 6th, there is no single critic review of „Renegades" on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, and the IMDb user score 5.6 out of 10 doesn't seem to promising either. Even the image selection published thus far is shitty. Let me be the bearer of good news, then: „Renegades" is not some bullcrap deserving to be forgotten right after premiere. It is a very OK action adventure which I happened to enjoy from the beginning to the end. The action is fine, the story is fine and the cast of nobodies is cool also. Simmons, of course, steals the show but it would be difficult for anybody to wrestle with this cinematic magnetic force of a bald old man. "Renegades" is smart enough to not take itself too seriously so the story and the characters won't get boring. But it takes seriously the punching and shooting part, evoking the nostalgic atmosphere of old war (or maybe 1980's action) movies where the good guys always hit the mark and look good doing so. Luc Besson, one of the writers and producers, has been known for his „eurotrash" approach to action movies where the realism is out of the window and dirty fun factor is up to eleven. Well, surprisingly, this one's not trashy but rather a solid little actioneer that you could bring home to show to your parents, or something. The characters and their relationships are surprisingly subtle too, not a single sex bomb Eastern European chick on sight! The men are not complicated, mostly used as a means to move the story along, but they feel real enough to root for them. Oh, and the settings look beautifully pictoresque, especially the lake hiding the treasure. And it should, considering that it was shot in Croatia and Malta, among others. If one is to try to find the faults with the movie, the underwater part could have been shorter, maybe. It's not the most gripping section because of the impaired visibility and freedom of movement (due to it being underwater) which slows the usual high-octane action down. Interestingly, Steven Quale has co-directed the underwater documentary „Aliens of the Deep" (2005) alongside the great James Cameron. His other works are more mundane, including 2014's „Into the Storm" and, er, „Final Destination 5". „Renegades" is well done in every major aspect, a polished and solid action movie totally worthy of your time. Well, my time at least. A hefty slice of competence porn of manly men doing the hard work no on else can and not counting bullets doing so cuz doing the right thing justifies the means!

Switch your brain off... if strike back was a movie then this would be pretty much how it looked..! I've definitely seen worse, but to hell with it... few beers on board and it's easy watching, just don't expect great things from it other than a cheese fest

Completely predictable, Navy seal team are the strongest, no one can stop them. They avoided every bullet, which is impossible in reality but only possible in American cinematography ;)

Its clear this isn't your AAA big money Tom Cruise Action movie but that hardly detracts from the overall enjoyment from the movie in fact the day of the Hollywood A Lister headlining movies seems to be coming to an end.

The movie itself is well directed and the cast are all good with a couple of stand out performances from screen veterans.

Watching the film I was reminded very much of the action adventure novels I used to read as a kid and into my late teens. It had that vibe all throughout the film and it was just an enjoyable movie to watch from start to finish. There was some funny moments in it and there was some romance and sprinkled throughout was action,danger and bravado.

If you are expecting an out and out action movie then you may well be dissapointed as while there is action, explosions and fighting in the movie they certainly do not dominate it.

I think the pacing may be little off in parts and a tighter budget restricts the amount of 'danger' they can add to the scenes but all in all its a very enjoyable movie with a feel good factor throughout.

The plot and characters have promise, with a killer location for the movie, but they are so far wide of the mark in so many aspects it's almost disappointing. The plot twists are formulaic and obvious, the dialogue cheesy and typically over the top American bravado.

If they had a military technical advisor, he should be put in front of a firing squad and shot. Many aspects of the film are woefully inaccurate and even downright stupid. 2 NATO elite SF Units going head to head is absolutely laughable, never mind the Yanks walking through unscathed as if they were facing wet behind the ears recruits!

Pilots just head off on a jolly into enemy airspace getting involved in air to air combat with no air support, flight auth or follow up.

The helo carrying the cargo at the end couldn't even get remotely close to lifting that sort of weight. I could go on but you get the drift. Not everything has to be 100% realism, but it has to be at least close/believeable

Sullivan Stapleton plays Sullivan Stapleton again in this movie. I actually like him as an action hero, but he is basically playing Damien Scott/Kurt Weller in this.

Despite all that, it does try to harp back to the 80's and 90's type of action movies, there are some lovely locations and some good action sequences, although not nearly enough for an action movie if am honest. It starts with a bang and ends with a whimper!

Simmons provides some comedic relief, but again he plays the same character we all expect him to be with nothing outdide of what's expected of him.

It's not the worst film you'll ever see and is a bit of mindless fun if you need some time off with your brain in neural, but I doubt you would ever revisit it.