[TBwoP] The A-Team: I Hate It When a Plan Isn't Very Well Thought-Out
Ubiquitous
Five minutes into The A-Team, Hannibal Smith steps out of the Mexican
desert and hijacks B.A. Baracus's van at gunpoint. Although strangers,
the two quickly realize that they're both Airborne Rangers, and Baracus
actually knows of Smith. It's a coincidence bordering on
preposterousness, and it was at this point that I came to a realization:
The A-Team is the guy version of Sex and the City 2. What A-Team has for
guys (explosions, missions to Germany, prison terms) Sex and the City 2
has for girls (gay weddings, vacations to Abu Dhabi, brief detainment).
And this totally chance meeting between two people in the middle of a
desert? It's like Carrie meeting her ex-lover Aidan on the streets of
Abu Dhabi. And while neither is a good movie by any stretch of the
imagination, my guy genes were a little more lenient on A-Team's
awfulness. What can I say, I am a prisoner of my gender.
If you couldn't tell by the commercials, the violence in the movie is
nothing if not consistent, and the opening segment of the film, which
shows how the gang all met, is pretty over-the-top. The gang comes
together purely by chance in Mexico -- and immediately execute their
first successful mission. Eight years later, they're in Iraq, and one of
the Army's most valuable assets. This, of course, is when the CIA taps
them to steal back some printing plates for American currency, and the
job, while executed perfectly, is sufficiently hush-hush that the A-Team
take the fall when their commanding officer is killed and the plates go
missing. It's pretty close to the TV show's Vietnam origin story, but in
this case, the team is split up and sent to four prisons around the
world. One by one, the CIA helps them escape, so they can help track
down the plates, and the rest is noisy, flaming history. Literally --
most of their "plans" involve making a lot of noise and fire. But then,
that's pretty accurate to the original show.
Really, the only thing that makes the movie worth seeing (besides the
explosions) is the cast -- you can't help but want to hug Liam Neeson
every time you see him, and Bradley Cooper is both hysterical and
emotionally accessible as Faceman, who has a romantic history with the
officer (Jessica Biel) tasked with recapturing them and wears his heart
on his sleeve. Sharlto Copley's Howlin' Mad Murdock is a whirling
dervish of pop-culture references and crazy-eyed madness, but when he
occasionally gets sad or scared, his lapse into sober silence shows the
character's soul. And UFC fighter Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, playing
B.A. Baracus, does a great impersonation of Mr. T (with occasional
diversions into Dave Chappelle's Rick James) that does the original
character justice. There's even a plot line where Baracus swears off
violence, which may be a reference to Mr. T's born-again views or simply
to the fact that the original A-Team rarely killed anybody. (Mr. T is
also the only living cast member who turned down a cameo. Dirk Benedict
and Dwight Schultz are in it, but only in a post-credits scene.)
As the evil CIA agent, Patrick Wilson channels whatever wicked,
power-drunk cad Jason Patric channeled in The Losers, which is yet
another similarity between the two films. (They both also end in ports,
surrounded by shipping containers.) He's still a lot of fun, though, as
is Brian Bloom as the leader of a mercenary group in Iraq who becomes
yet another foe for the team. And it must have been a dream for director
Joe Carnahan to land Gerald McRaney, Major Dad himself, to play the
doomed General Morrison at the beginning of the film. There's a great
cameo at the very end that I won't spoil for you, but let's just say
that Mad Men fans should stick around for it. I don't know how many Mad
Men fans are going to go see this loud, bombastic, unintelligent film,
let alone make it through to the end, but consider yourself notified.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.