Very well executed

the audience applauded

Fresh and Exciting

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

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.

I wonder if Christian Slater - who once was a big star in major Hollywood movies - gets more depressed with every direct to DVD movie he's been doing for the past few years. Don't get me wrong - I do enjoy a lot of direct to DVD movies. And this one has some merit, such as some interesting locations as well as some colorful and likable performances by the supporting cast (Ving Rhames, James Cromwell, and Sean Bean). Slater, on the other hand, seems less than enthusiastic, almost as if he's gritting his teeth all through the movie. It's probably due to a couple of factors that ultimately sink things. The movie looks pretty cheap; probably most of the budget was blown rounding up that memorable cast of actors. A bigger problem is that the movie isn't very exciting. The action sequences come across as flat and without punch for the most part. And there's somewhat less action than you might think. I've seen a lot worse, but I'm still surprised that a major Hollywood studio (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) picked this up for distribution.

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?

I dig Christian Slater so I figured I'd give this movie a shot. He's been good in most everything I've ever seen of his (Heather's and Gangsters to name just 2 off my head) Boy was I sorry I chose to watch this movie. It was a complete waste of time. The acting is pitiful and many of the special effects look very elementary. The main cast should have at least had some sort of athletic ability...some training with real soldiers would have benefited them greatly. Many of the battle scenes were nearly laughable (especially the last shot during the village raid). The jet-ski scene....my nephew could have made better graphics on his laptop. Maybe Christian should stick with sinister roles and not try to do military movies. And the supporting cast....atrocious, and that's being polite.