I’ve promised myself that this review will not include any A-Team clichés. There’ll be no pitying fools, no loving plans coming together and no refusals to get on no planes, fool. At least, I’m trying not to include any. They may sneak in under the radar.
Restraint may be the theme of this review then, but it is far from the agenda of the film in question. As you are no doubt aware, Smokin’ Aces director Joe Carnahan has taken the fondly remembered TV show and recast the characters with Liam Neeson, The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper, District 9’s Sharlto Copley and mixed martial artist Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as Hannibal, Face, Murdock and BA. Star of various naff rom-coms Jessica Biel and Watchmen’s Patrick Wilson tag along as Face’s love interest and CIA contact respectively. Cast and crew then proceed to blow things up, shoot folks dead and engage in all manner of vehicular destruction at incredible volumes for two hours.
The plot is a complete mess, but as it stands, we are introduced to our heroes in Mexico where the group of soldiers originally meet in a largely unexplained and bizarre incident which sees a number of the clichés mentioned above ticked off in the first fifteen minutes. Eight years later, the quartet is in Iraq, on a secret mission to recover monetary printing plates. Upon recovering the plates, they are framed by a black ops guy for the death of their commanding officer. They are incarcerated but, of course, escape and set about clearing their names.
The story is largely incomprehensible and simply serves as a means for the foursome to pull off one ridiculous stunt followed by another, over and over again. The ridiculous stunts are pretty good though, especially the freefalling tank scene, unfortunately given away in the trailer. The writers must have had a hell of a lot of fun coming up with the group’s antics but also must have faced a nightmare working out how to string them all together.
The cast are okay and hit most of the right notes most of the time in recreating the well-loved characters from the programme. Neeson is particularly decent, while Sharlto Copley straddles the funny/annoying borderline erratically. There’s also a scene in a mental asylum where the character acts in a manner of questionable taste. Also, in an effort to elevate BA to something more than a catchphrase spouting machine, he is given a weird subplot in which the character devotes himself to nonviolence, which is totally unnecessary and rubbish.
Patrick Wilson clearly had a ball playing his part and is a source of much of the humour. Jessica Biel, however, feels almost totally redundant in a boring role clearly added on to avoid a complete sausage-fest. The film is also unfeasibly loud; whether it was the volume at the screening I attended or the actual sound mix of the film itself, but the constant explosions, gunfire and shouting gave me a nasty headache. Even regular talking was so loud, the actor’s voices distorted and I could barely understand what they were saying.
It should be said that the film would be almost total rubbish were it not for the reasonably likable central characters. That’s probably not enough to entice or impress non-fans, but those with a pre-existing emotional investment in the characters will probably enjoy The A-Team quite a lot. There’s also a treat for them after the credits…
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