77) The A-Team

The A-Team (2010)

Director: Joe Carnahan

Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel, Patrick Wilson, Gerald McRaney, Brian Bloom

I was never a die hard fan of The A-Team television show. I hadn't grown up with it. I'd discovered it in my teens and found it to be quite enjoyable, but for some reason I was reasonably excited by the prospect of an A-Team movie. My excitement grew when I saw the trailer for The A-Team, even though the trailer gave no real indication whether the movie was going to be amazing or awful. Kate has finished her classes for the semester so now has Thursday evenings free and had an exam yesterday so was keen to relax so we thought we'd catch an opening night screening (like Iron Man 2 it looked like her kind of movie. Fun action where when people get shot they just fall over dead rather than bleed everywhere).

An Alpha Unit, or A-Team, of Iraq War vets under the command of Hannibal Smith (Neeson), who specialise in missions of a more outrageous nature are given the job of recovering a set of engraving plates and bills from Baghdad which could be used to counterfeit millions of dollars worth of US currency. When the mission goes horribly wrong and the plates are stolen, Hannibal and his team; Templeton 'Face' Peck (Cooper), Bosco 'B.A.' Baracus (Jackson) and 'Howling Mad' Murdock (Copley), are charged, convicted, dishonourably discharged and locked up in four separate maximum security facilities by a military court. Hannibal and his team break out of prison in order to go after the true thieves so they can clear their records and be reinstated.

Often when a film version of a popular television show is made something gets lost in translation. In taking everything to a new level and giving it the Hollywood treatment the filmmakers seem determined to take things more seriously or make it "darker", and in doing so forget what it was that made the show popular in the first place. In the case of The A-Team, Carnahan has done a wonderful job of upping the ante with the addition of some big name stars and big budget effects without losing the sense of light-hearted fun which made The A-Team such an enjoyable show. The action scenes remain largely bloodless, there is minimal coarse language and the sexual tension between Jessica Biel's Sosa and Bradley Cooper's Face is broken by nothing more than a kiss.

The cast is does a wonderful job. Liam Neeson battles with consistency in accent, but is none the less a perfect fit as Hannibal adding to his recent penchant for mentor type roles (consider Qui-Gon Jin in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Henri Ducard in Batman Begins and Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). Bradley Cooper is pretty much himself, a wise-cracking pretty boy, and it fits the part perfectly. UFC star Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson is fine filling the iconic role of B.A. Baracus. That being said the role only really requires him to look menacing. Sharlto Copley is the highlight though. In only his second feature film after he burst onto the scene as Wikus Van De Merwe in the brilliant District 9, he steals the scene virtually every time he appears as the unhinged maniac Murdock. He also has some issues with maintaining his accent, but given he is meant to be playing a lunatic it is not so much of an issue (he even gets a scene where he gets to 'pretend' to be South African). There is also a really strong chemistry between the four leads which really helps with the fun atmosphere of the movie.

The support cast is also good. Patrick Wilson gets some brilliant lines as the CIA agent Lynch. His is definitely one of the funnier villainous performances I've seen (the scene in the car with his henchmen intending to kill Brian Bloom's Pike is a particular highlight). Jessica Biel gets third billing in the credits behind Neeson and Cooper because she is a big name, and she does an ok job but really her role is pretty bland.

My one complaint about the movie, which is not so much a complaint specifically about The A-Team as it is about modern action movies in general, concerns the way in which the action sequences are shot. Steven Spielberg revolutionised things with the opening Omaha Beach landing scene of Saving Private Ryan. He used rapid cutting together of short, moving shots in order to perfectly create a really frenetic sense of panic and terror in battle. That has pretty much become the template for shooting action scenes since then. Recently though, I feel this style is going too far. I noticed it in Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and again in The A-Team that during the action scenes the camera is moving so much and cutting so quickly that you actually struggle to focus on the image and work out what it is that you are looking at. I think this is because filmmakers have started using this style for two purposes; firstly for the tone it creates, but also to cover over special effects and stunts.

The whole film is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, to the point that I was genuinely surprised that there was no blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from Mr. T. There are however short cameos from Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz, the original Faceman and Murdock, in a short scene after the credits, which unfortunately I only discovered after I'd left.

The A-Team is simply the most fun you'll have at the movies this year.