Director: Steven Quale
Writer: Richard Wenk, Luc Besson (Screenplay)
Starring: J.K. Simmons, Sullivan Stapleton, Charlie Bewley, Sylvia Hoeks, Joshua Henry, Diarmaid Murtagh, Dimitri Leonidas
Plot: A team of Navy SEALs discover an underwater treasure in a Bosnian lake.
Tagline – $300 million. 5 Navy SEALs. 1 impossible heist.
Runtime: 1 Hour 46 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Bland
Story: Renegades starts as we meet the five Navy SEALs Matt (Stapleton), Stanton (Bewley), Ben (Henry), Kurt (Murtagh) and Jack (Leonidas) who work on extracting enemies from danger zones, with the latest area being in Bosnia and the latest escape causing major damage to the city, much to their boss’s Levin (Simmons) anger.
With Stanton dating a local woman Lara (Hoeks), she has planned to use the men’s help to uncover stolen gold from World War II, only for the previous mission to leave the men in hot water with the local military looking to hunt them down, can the team pull of the heist before it is too late.
Thoughts on Renegades
Characters – Levin is the commanding officer that is constantly criticising the SEALs, even though he does respect the work they do, he is always fair, while being strict towards them. When it comes to the SEALs we get the young one, the one with a tragic past and the generic rest of them, none of the five main characters really stand out in anyway. Lara is the local woman that is dating one of the SEALs, who brings them the idea of the gold, wanting to make sure that her people get what is theirs.
Performances – We have J.K. Simmons in this film, he is by far the best part of the performances, because of how much he demands the screen. Sylvia Hoeks does well, while it is the actors playing the SEALs that struggle to bring their characters to life.
Story – The story here follows a group of navy SEALs that team up with a local woman to unearth gold which was lost during World War II, even though the city is crawling with soldiers looking to kill them. This is an attempt to put a spin on the heist film, which could have worked if the characters had something about them, but in the end it is just a story we have seen before, offering very little else to the genre. It is largely forgettable in everyway, you know how it will unfold and by the end you just will be left with a feeling of we have seen this.
Action/Crime/War – The action in the film is basic war scenes, in the 90s street conflicts, no scenes stand out, while the crime world is how people will always look to profit from someone else’s misfortune.
Settings – The film is set in Bosnia, through a war torn city, while the underwater scene does pose a couple of problems for the heist, we don’t get anything new when it comes to the locations.
Scene of the Movie – First escape.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The SEALs are bland.
Final Thoughts – This is a very basic action heist movie, it offers nothing new to the genre and by the end of the film, you most likely have forgotten most of it.
Overall: Forgettable.
