The 'B-minus' Team
Even though it’s wildly uneven, still pity the fool who misses ‘The A-Team’
By Carl Kozlowski 06/10/2010
Movies based on TV shows are often some of the most painful-to-watch re-renderings offered by major studios these days. Whether it was the big-screen version of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “My Favorite Martian” or this summer’s mega-bomb “MacGruber,” the ratio of awful adaptations to successful ones is vastly disproportionate.
Once in awhile, though, some succeed — “Wayne’s World,” “The Blues Brothers” and the “Mission: Impossible” films come to mind. And now “The A-Team,” a wildly uneven, yet at times even more wildly entertaining edition of the ridiculously fun ’80s NBC series, joins that list.
Series purists may find plenty to grouse about, as the film kicks off with a somewhat-different take on the group, having Col. Hannibal Smith (played by Liam Neeson) meet B.A. Baracus (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson) for the first time, as he forces him to let him hitch a ride en route to saving his friend “Faceman” (Bradley Cooper).
They are immediately at odds before bonding over their mutual Army Rangers tattoos, a trait they share with Faceman and their final member, an insane chopper pilot named “Howling Mad” Murdock (Sharlto Copley).
The tattoo discovery and subsequent bonding is a bit heavy handed and produced unintended chuckles from the audience. And the opening action sequence involving the rescue of Faceman from Mexican killers features both underwhelming action and an annoying rap-rock score. But just when it appears the film will be mired in bad writing and an obnoxious sensory overload, something starts to click.
Once the storyline jumps 10 years from the opening action to the present, where the A-Team is mixed in with US troops in Iraq,
the film quickly finds its footing.
A CIA agent named Lynch (Patrick Wilson) enlists Hannibal to bring the team out on a mission to find and retrieve US currency-making plates stolen by Iraqi soldiers during the first Gulf War that are now in danger of falling into even worse hands.
The team pulls off the plate retrieval, only to have a surprise twist occur that results in the guys being accused of high crimes, put on trial by the military and sent to individual prisons scattered around the world. When they eventually get a chance to escape and save the day, the resulting four breakouts are again highly entertaining, although nothing tops a sequence in which the guys wind up in an aerial dogfight with two US fighter drone jets with heat-seeking missiles, all while flying a tank. Crazier still is the sight of Faceman popping open the tank roof and manning a machine-gun turret against the drones.
Yes, they fly a tank. The sequence is absurd, over-the-top but utterly amazing — in my opinion, it’s one of the best action scenes I’ve seen, nearly matched just minutes later with an incredible heist and shootout. Director/co-writer Joe Carnahan (who also steered the audaciously entertaining “Smokin’ Aces”) is fast becoming a major force to be reckoned with.
Mr. T, who starred as B.A. Baracus in the TV series, declined to be a part of the new film, complaining that the violence was too graphic and that it also had too much sex. That complaint is baffling in one respect, as there are no sex scenes whatsoever, but his take on the violence might hold some interest for concerned parents.
Overall, “The A-Team” is so incredibly good in its spectacular center that it overcomes its shoddy opening and climax to still be well worth the price of admission. I pity the fool who misses out on the tank scene, in particular.
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