Renegades (2017)

Renegades (2017)

A team of Navy SEALs discover an underwater treasure in a Bosnian lake. RENEGADES is about a team of Navy SEALs on assignment in war-torn Europe who discover a treasure of gold at the bottom of a lake -- rumored to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. In an effort to help the locals, they go rogue and engineer a heist to retrieve the gold and return it to its rightful owners. But in a deadly turn of events, they are detected by the enemy and left with only 10 hours to carry out their mission. The film stars J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) & Sullivan Stapleton (300: Rise of an Empire), is Directed by Steven Quale (Final Destination 5 and Into the Storm) and is an original story written by Luc Besson (Taken and Lucy).

Rating: PG-13 (for violence, brief sexuality and language)

Genre: Action & Adventure, Mystery & Suspense

Directed By: Steven Quale

Written By: Luc Besson, Richard Wenk

In Theaters: Sep 1, 2017 Limited

Studio: EuropaCorp / STXfilms

Its heroes' macho joshing is dumb enough to make The A-Team sound like the Algonquin Round Table. It's amiable stuff, but rather infantile - about as hard-bitten and plausible as an episode of The A-Team, and with a similar standard of acting. The kind of gung-ho malarkey you don't often see these days. There is a spectacular scene in which someone drives a tank off a bridge, and JK Simmons gives the film some ballast as the guys' scowling commanding officer, but the rest of the time this resembles a TV movie of egregious averageness. A messy production beaten down by the whiplashing of its loose narrative threads. Everyone here is capable of much better, and audiences deserve more. Largely gung-ho nonsense, but it's always a pleasure to see J.K. Simmons in ball-busting mode, barking words like "simpletons!" at his men. If Danny Ocean and Barney Ross from The Expendables had a baby, it might look something like this - but should they? Save for some impressive underwater photography and a scene-stealing cameo from J.K. Simmons, Renegades proves less enjoyable than a week at boot camp. Okay, so some of the combat scenes are really poorly shot. Then some of the cinematography is actually breathtaking. Just as suddenly we're in the middle of a Ocean's Eleven, to James Bond, and back to Strike Back. All around, a really great movie. 3.5/5.