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The A-Team:  Pity the Fool Who Expects Too Much!

By Sandra Olmsted

Rarely does adapting a television series to the big screen work, but the new version of Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell’s series, The A-Team, does. That’s because writer/director Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces) and writers Brian Bloom (debut) and Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) connect with the spirit of the original and translate that spirit into excesses and excitement large enough to fill a movie theater.

Carnahan’s The A-Team is exactly what it should be.  The film is escapist summer entertainment meant to sell popcorn and to thrill audiences who want a two-hours respite from the real world where physics and gravity control outcomes and where mere mortals can’t always overcome injustice.  In this quick moving adaptation, Carnahan, Bloom, and Wood add a running dialogue of witty retorts, some romance, a dash of philosophy, and sexy characters, and the result is a fun film, suitable for most family members.

The film opens with Hannibal (Liam Neeson, Clash of the Titans) rescuing fellow Army ranger Lt. Templeton ‘Faceman’ Peck (Bradley Cooper, Valentine’s Day) with the assistance of B.A. Baracus (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Death Warrior) and Murdock (Sharlto Copley, District 9), also members of the rangers brotherhood.  The film quickly proceeds to eight years and many missions later.

As the Americans are pulling out of Iraq, Hannibal convinces General Morrison (Gerald McRaney, Get Low) to give the A-Team the mission to secure stolen printing plates for all denominations of American currency and a truckload of counterfeit US bills.  Many forces seem to be at work for and against the A-Team before they even leave the military base.

Capt. Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel, Valentine’s Day), a former girlfriend of Faceman who now outranks him, warns him and the A-Team to stay away from the mission, but a CIA agent named Lynch (Patrick Wilson, Barry Munday) also appears at the base with his own agenda.  Then, a competing team of ranger-like mercenaries gets miffed when they lose the mission to the A-Team, and a once semi-good natured rivalry may turn ugly.  After a mesmerizing action sequence, the A-Team arrives at the base with the plates, money, and truck, but something goes wrong.  Soon, the A-Team heroes are cast as villains, court-martialed, and imprisoned in separate prisons; however, Hannibal never gives up on proving his innocence and that of his team.

Carnahan guides the film through a series of exciting action sequences in which the A-Team will eventually break out of their respective prisons, figure out where the plates are and who has them, lay a trap for the bad guys, and end with an outlandish plan to reveal the real bad guys.  Although the finale requires checking brains at the door, this isn’t a film that requires thinking as much as enjoying the improbability of it all and not spilling popcorn.

The banter between the A-Team adds another level to the film, but this isn’t deep content, just fun, jocular humor.  Even B.A.’s conversion to Gandhi’s form of nonviolence isn’t played for more than a means to set up suspense and show an emotional depth to B.A. and let Hannibal emote understanding.  Otherwise, B.A. spends much of the film sedated because the A-Team is in the air.  Furthermore, it is disturbing that the biggest guy and the only minority needs the most help and has a fear of flying

Neeson is sexy; he looks handsomely fit and healthy, and his character’s exudes good guy like a heady aftershave.  Cooper is attractive because his character is cute and ornery, and he protects the women he loves.  Copley’s performance as Murdock, whose mental state and absolute lack of fear about danger or dying, adds a quirkiness to the film’s humor, and the film would be flat without him.  Only the character of B. A. lacks the substantialness of a finely-written and fully-fleshed character, but then the original character was somewhat limited also

Unless one is a huge fan of the original, forgetting that The A-Team is based on a television series is easy because the film doesn’t look or feel like a television show to fill a big screen.  Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence throughout, and for  language and smoking.

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