Morning:
10°c
Nick Curtis's rating
Guns and grunts from The A-Team
By
Nick Curtis
30 Jul 2010
Imagine being caught in the middle of a two-hour artillery display with four adrenaline-crazed US soldiers shouting in your face. That’s what this retooling of the naff 1980s TV adventure series about on-the-run war veterans feels like. Joe Carnahan’s movie is loud and vulgar and disorienting, but also an exhilarating kind of fun.
It irons out the appealing quirks of the original series (remember Boy George’s cameo?) and further flattens its caricatured quartet of oddball Robin Hoods. Rather than bitch and moan like old married people, Hannibal, Face, BA and Murdock operate here at constant emotional extremes of exultation, mania or rage, as if they are on amphetamines.
Chiefly, though, Carnahan ramps up the carnage, banging together huge bits of low-tech metal, tipping a tank out of an exploding cargo plane or scattering transport containers like a man sowing corn.
The concept of the A-Team as honest grunts traduced by their superiors, the CIA and private security contractors may be cynical but chimes well with the times. It also saves the film from the emptiness that curses Michael Bay movies.
The theme is honour and loyalty. We see the A-Team formed in the white heat of a prologue helicopter chase. Then they are “accused of a crime they didn’t commit”, namely the theft of currency printing plates in the US Army’s withdrawal from Iraq.
Liam Neeson, as operational mastermind Hannibal Smith, tempers cigar-chewing charisma with righteous anger on behalf of his men. The terminally smug and stupidly handsome seducer Face (Bradley Cooper) turns out to carry a torch for the ex (Jessica Biel) who wants to arrest him.
Angry black man BA Baracus and “Howling Mad” pilot Murdock (played by professional fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and District 9’s Sharlto Copley respectively) now look more like queasy stereotypes than they did in the Eighties. But they share in the potent sense of camaraderie, and it’s hard not to enjoy it when Hannibal quotes Gandhi to help the newly peacable BA get murderous on some pitiful fool.
Somehow, it comes together. Carnahan whisks the action from Mexico to Iraq to Germany to Los Angeles as smoothly as in a Bond or Bourne film. He keeps the human dimension simmering while executing the big set pieces with panache — even the absurd orgy of spectacle that is the dockside finale. This summer, I suspect resistance is useless.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (2)
I'm afraid Michael is missing the point. The film is an homage to the 80s' TV series - that's why the van is included for all of 10 seconds. The film is supposed to be silly, stupid and contrived because so was the series. We're just meant to enjoy it for the nostalgia. I saw it with some friends who - along with the rest of the audience - were old enough to have seen the original series when we were kids and we all thought it was hugely funny. I mean...they were trying to fly a tank! It's not supposed to be deep and meaningful...just a bit of fun for anyone over 35.
- Catherine, London, 25/08/2010 15:13
Report abuse
Casting: Terrible. Face prances about with his shirt off for half the film with a gormless grin uttering cliche's every five minutes. So annoying you want to punch him. Murdoch isn't Howling Mad, or funny, just a bit odd.
Script: Worse. Firstly, even though this is basically a big kid's action film, I got the feeling the scriptwriters were trying to crowbar as many swearwords past the censor as possible to be "down with da kids". Early on in the film there were two identical uses of "MotherFu-" {explosion} in quick succession. Very contrived, but not nearly as contrived as...
The Plot: Here things get worse (if that were at all possible). I'll pick out a few examples: We're introduced to the BA character. He goes to pick his van up from the garage. For reasons unconnected to the plot he ends up fighting a load of burly chaps. Eh? Shortly after the van's wrecked, why bother even putting it in the film then? Next he meets Hanibal, who asks him for a lift, and shoots him in the arm (in that order). BUT they have the same tattoo, so suddenly they're the best of buddies. What? Then they resue Face from some bad gangster type. Plot connection? Don't be silly. There are so many stupid, contrived things in this film, it's hard to count them all. But one did stick in my mind. The image of a forty foot steel container (about 30 tonnes) gets thown into the sea, kept afloat by a few car airbags stuck to the side.
Probably the worst film since Indiana Jones 4.
- Michael, Liverpool, UK, 31/07/2010 19:47
Report abuse
