The A-Team. 118 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Joe Carnahan. Written by Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom and Skip Woods. Based on the television series by Frank Lupo and Stephen J Cannell.
Hollywood, with the persistence of a really bad toothache, has been raiding the archives of successful television series for years (Starsky and Hutch, Miami Vice) – hoping against all hope, that one of the big-screen adaptations will become a runaway box office bonanza. And while it possibly won’t be this one, Carnahan and Co’s big-screen adaptation of the much-loved, breakaway television series (which originally ran for 98 episodes from 1983 to 1986) is a great, big, roller-coaster ride of thrills, spills and gravity-defying spectacle. And it’s impossible not to succumb to the frustratingly limited joys of its messy, shambolic boisterousness.
Unlike the inexcusable liberties taken with the appalling Bewitched, for example, Carnahan (possibly taking his lead from the hugely successful Mission: Impossible franchise) wisely approaches The A-Team with a serious amount of near-reverent respect – resisting the temptation to tamper with the series’ winning blueprint. Our heroes have still been framed for a crime they didn’t commit. They, again, escape from prison with imaginative and spirited inventiveness, and they are still on the run from the authorities and trying to clear their names.
The film is perfectly cast (with Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson sharing the ‘A-Team’ honours), while Patrick Wilson (Passengers), Jessica Biel (Easy Virtue) and Brian Bloom all shine in their cartoon character-like ‘bad Federal Agent, good cop’ supporting roles.
Cinematographer Mauro Fiore’s (Avatar, The Island) keeps his camera up-close and intensely personal with all the chaotic goings on, while Roger Barton (Transformers, Speed Racer) and Jim May’s (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) editing keeps the pace set at ‘fast and furious’ from go to whoa.
Ironically, the extreme close-up visual and frantically disjointed editing styles are (especially considering the extent of the onscreen and behind-the-camera talent involved), revealed to be peculiarly naïve and short-sighted choices. This is no more obvious than in the film’s penultimate sequence (set in a deserted, ice-bound cabin by a lake) where we finally (and memorably) pause for calm and considered character development. It is also the point at which everyone involved are revealed to be better at sustaining our interest than Carnahan had previously either believed or permitted them to be. The climactic dockside sequence is just too much of a “how many angles can I shoot this from?” shambles to have ever been worth the wait.
Updated from the Vietnam War (in which TV’s A-Team heroes served) to the Iraq War, The A-Team, perhaps un-ironically, makes another interesting point: which is that America is involved in yet another seemingly un-winnable and increasingly unpopular conflict on foreign soil that, while severely challenging the national psyche, also presents its filmmakers with all sorts of marvellous, militaristically-informed story-telling opportunities. So I guess that as long as nobody mentions M*A*S*H or F-Troop too loudly, we should all be fine.
This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Geraldton Guardian.
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