Renegades

This is a very silly film; highly enjoyable but very silly. A variation on the heist film it’s not going to trouble the grey matter too much.

The premise is that a team of US Navy SEALS operating in Eastern Europe having spectacularly cocked up an operation, are getting ready to be sent home. When through the local girlfriend of one of the SEALS, they discover that there could be hundreds of millions of Dollar’s worth of looted gold in a sunken village.

The SEALS decide they could do with some of that and even after splitting it with the village, they would still be quid’s in. So begins the operation to find and lift the gold out of the lake.

On the way they encounter local hoodlums and the enemy forces. However, far more intimidating than any of these is their Commanding Officer Jacob Levin (J K Simmons). Simmons, with some ripe lines from writers Luc Besson and Richard Wenk to work with, is in scenery chewing mood so that in the scenes he is in no one can live with him.

The rest of the cast are conveyor belt action film cyphers as this is all about the planning and execution of the heist. It’s a boys own adventure/A-Team stuff with a few fights and plenty of guns.

Steven Quale’s direction is fluid and formulaic, though he does have a good eye for the scenery. It’s a disposable action romp that will pass the viewers’ time but not likely to have many repeat views.