In case you’re not up on your 80′s culture, The A-Team was a popular TV show about a group of Vietnam war veterans framed for a crime they didn’t commit. So instead of hiding or making a run to Mexico, they play mercenary for people in trouble. It was pure escapism from reality, a lot of crazy crap would happen, a lot of guns would get fired but it all turned out okay in the end and no one died no matter what.
Flash forward to 2010 when Hollywood has milked and is still milking every cash cow it can find. Anything that used to be anything is now something again. It was only a matter of time they got to this little chestnut. Not much has changed except that now they are Iraq War veterans instead of Vietnam and, yes, people do die.
This is in essence an origin story for the team, they all haven’t met up yet. Hannibal (Liam Neeson) kicks the festivities off by getting the shit kicked out of him by crooked Mexican police. Okay, so maybe these guys got smarter since being on TV and did make a run for the border. But I digress…
We later learn that this was all part of Hannibal’s plan to get a tracking device to the location where his buddy Face (Bradley Cooper) is having some trouble with the locals. He manages to escape in a way that tells you that this guy plans ahead and then some. He’s the kind of the guy who would show up at the Titanic with half a dozen blow torches.
That’s what makes the opening so good. It introduces you to the characters all while keeping the action going. Face is in captivity for seducing the wrong man’s wife and is still cocky as hell, Murdock (Sharlto Copely) is balls out crazy while they try to get him to fly them out of danger and B.A. Baracus (Quentin ‘Rampage’ Jackson), well he yells a lot and acts like you just stole his favorite eclair. They’re able to introduce and shape them without minimal coverage, and that’s not easy to do.
Speaking of B.A. Baracus, ‘Rampage’ does a really good job of making the character his own. There’s a few times where he kind of sounds like Mr. T. (who made the role famous), but it kind of seems like they had to do that to keep the hard core fans happy. Otherwise, he’s his own person with it and really brings something to the table. In fact, all the leads do an excellent job. These guys have really good chemistry between each other and its really ramps up the fun.
In keeping with the tradition of the TV show, the action is outrageous and entirely unrealistic. Early on, we catch of glimpse of Murdock trying to jump start a truck by using a defibrillator. This sends him literally heels over head. It’s a live action cartoon moment that sets the tone for the rest of the movie. If you haven’t bought into the premise that’s being sold here, you might as well turn it off at this point and go back to Masterpiece Theatre. I recommend the one with Alistair Cooke in it.
The rest of the movie deals with how they get framed, how they escape and ultimately how they don’t quite redeem themselves. It’s a bit of downer ending and leaves out the whole ‘character arch’ most movies have. But c’mon, if they didn’t do it there’d be no possibility of a sequel. And we can’t have that.
Rating: (3 1/2 Explosions out of 5)
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