Renegades

JK Simmon's had the best lines, but this was a feel good action movie with a good ending.

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.

Renegades (2 out of 5 stars).

Renegades is a dull action thriller that could have been so much better as a war heist film about a group of Navy seals trying to reclaim gold that the Nazi's stole and buried it underneath a small town that is now a lake. Sadly, the film misses the opportunity to be an exciting fun action thriller. We are left with a movie that has tedious characters, boring direction, and terrible visual effects.

The plot begins with Nazi's stealing tons of gold from a village and had the village flooded with the gold locked in a vault. Now in 1995, a team of Navy seals led by Matt (Sullivan Stapleton) gather Intel by Lara (Sylvia Hoeks) that the gold is buried underneath the lake. After their mission was compromised. Matt and his team are put on leave. They decide to plan and reclaim the missing gold. With the SAS hot on Matt and his teams trail.

It was an interesting plot that does set up for a fun action packed thriller. The direction fails to even built any worthwhile action. The opening sequence with Matt and his team escaping after their mission was compromised was the only exciting scene there is. As they are driving their tank through the city with the bad guys after them. Even though, there were some bad visual effects. After that, the film drops the excitement and turns into a dull direction. Lara helps the team out by scouting and planning the heist. Nothing exciting happens throughout the second act of the movie. With Matt's commander Admiral J. Levin (J.K. Simmons) getting on their case for being military screw-ups. J. K. Simmons was the best thing about the movie. He delivers some fun laughs. Otherwise, the movie is boring. Even during the climax that spends most of the time underwater was a boring sequence. They travel to the flooded village and trying to break the gold out of the vault. With the SAS troops dropping bombs in the lake. And the scene gets confusing on what is going on underwater.

Overall, Renegades is a bad film. Nothing exciting happens. It has the concept of top notch action but fails in excitement. The characters are boring and forgettable. The script lacks development on the characters. The visual effects are terrible. And the direction is a tedious heist film. J.K. Simmons may have some moments to bring laughs but you will be falling asleep through the rest.

The premise started off mediocre, somehow reminding you of The Expendables series. The audience would probably think of it as a rip-off to the movie as it has that similar environment with its freakin' huge tank smashing through walls and smearing dirt over the roads while the S.A.S (Rival) trying to put a stop to it and arrest them for their own sake. The scene here did not fortify anything for the sake of the plot except on showing the team they were reckless enough on a very confidential mission.

As part of that, most of the actions scenes, well probably all of them that were shown in the official trailer were seen only in that first 20 minutes of the film. The second and third act did not maintain its action-heroic sequences that we thought it's going to take place on that before the screening started.

The dialogues were kind cheesy, saying words and the quite bland witty one-liners that merely gave us a smile or a sudden chuckle.

The cinematography was corny. For one, the color effect did not live up to its standard expectation as for us who are living in a world surrounding with techs. The coloring style was dull that added the clichéd-ness of the entire film.

Sullivan Stapleton did a good job with his acting but not as great as he was previously in the five seasons of Strike Back. J.K. Simmons also put some hope for the film to lighten its mood but the rest of the casts seem to be against the notion.

As the film went on until the final climax scene, we were expecting probably an action scene to wrap the movie nicely but surprisingly, none of the mentioned scene was provided unless if you call a dozen of grenades being anchored into the deep water and a 20-second featuring soldiers firing guns an action scene then.. hell yeah.

Not a great movie to be made in 2017. It should have been done 10 years earlier as audience would appreciate this popcorn flick film. 30/100