Powerful

How sad is this?

best movie i've ever seen.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

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.

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.

I have to agree with those who said this movie was horrible. I have to ask...what has happened to Christian Slater? He is a wonderful actor. Broken Arrow is one of my favourite movies (Yes I have many favourites) I have not seen Christian in very many good movies over the past few years. This makes me wonder if there has been some kind of falling out of favour in Hollywood. I do not watch or read any celebrity gossip shows / magazines. I simply know who I like and so see the movie....I am rarely gob smacked by the movie. This is one as was Battlefield earth that made me sit back and scratch my head. John Travolta, I just adore him. Again he and Slatter in Broken Arrow were great together. So what is happening? Why is Slatter disappearing into the goo of bad films? He is better then this...I hope he has a great come back.

I don't need to go into detail here as to the bad script, acting, special effects etc, but it made me laugh. The opening scene in a Taliban held village was a great laugh, especially the suspicious old man with burka woman. I stopped taking it seriously from right then and went along for the ride. The basic plot idea is good and could have been done with some style & class, considering the actors involved; but it came off as a straight-to-video actioner, not even credible enough to be a TV movie. We should probably expect more of the same in the coming months/years since the two Expendables movies, and the stars of those films are already making hay from Expendables with other, less worthy(?) movies. The basic story has been done before, but I would pay to see this done properly by a A-grade director with a strong script and decent effects budget; something along the lines of Predator, with an Arnold Schwarzenegger type lead to bring in the audience. All of the actors involved significantly underplayed their roles, making them look a bit one dimensional, but if it was on TV one night and I had nothing else to watch - I'd give it a shot. Great B-movie - 6/10.