The insanely brave

Film review: The A-Team

I believe that it was clever casting made the 1980’s TV series The A-Team a success. George Peppard, older but still remembered as the heartthrob from Breakfast at Tiffany’s as Hannibal Smith; Dick Benedict as Templeton “Face” Peck, and, boy, he really had a face; and young wrestler Mr. T as B.A. Baracus, whom all the kids loved and who made hardware acceptable decoration for machos. We didn’t know Dwight Schultz but he was so good at being insane as Howlin’ Mad Murdock that he infected everybody.

That was what The A-Team was about, being insanely brave. This also means not caring if they lived or died. What for, anyway. They’ve been to Vietnam and are now hunted mercenaries. They can look at danger in the eye and laugh. That is except for flying which Mr. T, was scared of.

They did a lot of laughing back then mostly at action hero stereotypes. The series was not only tongue in cheek witty. There were sight gags that were totally over the top. Remember how they bundled up the terrified Mr. T to get him on a plane piloted by Mad Murdock?

The problem with The A-Team as a movie in 2010 is would you believe, the casting. OK. Mr. T is a rare breed. I think he is irreplaceable as B.A. and Rampage Jackson does his best. Sharlto Copley from District 9 comes close. Like Schultz, he is ridiculously insane. He is brilliant. Bradley Cooper has gone from Alias baddie to Hollywood IT-boy and plays a Face who refuses to take his looks seriously. The original was funny because he was so caught up with his looks. But Cooper is hot. So he will have to do.

And what can I say about Liam Neeson? Well, he is the better actor but he has this sad cast to his face that we think does not allow him to have fun. Better be Schindler or Qui Gon Jinn but not Hannibal, who could demolish the enemy while laughing and chomping on his cigar at the same time. This one is a no can do. More so if you imagine what Bruce Willis could have done with this one?

The A-Team starts with four mismatched actors and an old story from TV land. Now how does one turn this combination into big bucks at the summer box-office? Easy. Get director Joe Carnahan for the job. After all, he blew up a lot of stuff in his Smokin’ Aces and had fiddled with madness in District 9. Also like his protagonists, Carnahan does not think outside the box. He thinks without a box. And that is what The A-Team is about.

The best comparison I can think of is that of a kid playing with a toy car. He loads it with a stuff bear and then proceeds to move it around the room. Forward and back. Up and down. No limitations. All the time with his own sound effects. Brooooom, brooooom... Then when he thinks the time is right, he drops it. Kerplunk? No because in his imagination he created a huge explosion. Dead bear? No, because he picks it up and starts again.

Now because Carnahan is a big boy and was given a big budget, his toys are also bigger. In fact his mayhem has now become spectacular. For example, he puts his heroes in an armored tank hanging from a parachute, which falls from an exploding plane. Not big enough. So he has the guys firing the gun at the enemy from inside the tank. Bigger still. They all survive.

Name me a kid, old or young who will not enjoy something like that. And Carnahan has lots of them here. Ok, I did get suspicious that he listed down all the fights, explosions, destructions, whatever, that he wanted to do first and then wove story around it. Story? That is how it looks like. They had something about stolen money plates that they must get back to prove themselves innocent of the crime.

What is happening on the screen is so much fun, I just had to brush away the bad thoughts. Besides, even Neeson seems to have accepted the corn and is already enjoying all the wacky overkill midway through the film. You will too.

I did and I also like it that an updated retelling of a TV series has kept the concept and characters intact. Unlike the way the producers only retained the title of Mission Impossible and made Miami Vice dark when it was all Florida sunshine and ice cream colors on TV. My only concern now is how will they top all that action in the next A-Team flick?