Film review- The A Team.

I love it when a film comes together.

by Susan Allen

The A-Team movie has been in development since the mid 1990s. They’ve gone through different writers, directors, cast and has been put on hold several times. But we now finally have our movie, and in my personal opinion, everything fell together perfectly. It was the perfect cast, perfect director, perfect writers, everything was fantastic, and frankly it was the perfect time to bring out the movie with the current standard of technology. However, it was not brought out in 3D, as is recently popular in the cinema today, but, in my experience, live action movies are not as good as animated films in 3D, with the exception of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. Which was mostly CG.

To play the famous characters from the well loved TV Series, the casting department chose an incredible group, both unknown and famous actors.

South African actor, Sharlto Copley, who made his blockbuster film début in critically acclaimed, District 9 (2009), plays H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock, the crazy, amazing A-Team pilot. Although seemingly insane, Murdock has surprising knowledge in many fields, including acting and fluency in other languages. In the movie, as well as the cult classic TV show, it is hinted that Murdock might actually be pretending to be insane.

Another new actor in the film is Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, an American mixed martial artist and actor. With a Ultimate Fighting career much like that of Mr.T, he was a natural choice for Cpl. Bocso “B.A.” Baracus. However, the character is presented somewhat differently, to distance him from the iconic B.A. in the show, for example he does not wear gold chains around his neck like his TV counterpart, and they refer to him as ‘Bosco’. However he has the word ‘pity’ on the knuckles of his left hand, and ‘fool’ on his right – a tribute to Mr. T’s catch phrase “I pity the fool.”

Bradley Cooper is an already established actor, having acted in many ‘Chick Flicks’, and more notably the recent comedy The Hangover, this attractive actor has been cast as Lt. Templeton “Faceman” Peck, (or simply “Face”). Throughout the movie, face changes from womanizing joker to a professional, where in the films climax, he plans the final mission, not Hannibal.

And finally, Liam Neeson, a reason in his own to watch the A-Team. Anything that Liam Neeson is in is instantly watchable. If I were to list his best movies it would take up the majority of my article. Neeson plays Col. John “Hannibal” Smith, the A-Team leader. He is tactically brilliant and capable of making a plan come together. Throughout the movie Hannibal’s plans are both amazing and ridiculous, including a plan to break all four of them out of separate maximum security prisons.

Through a ridiculous and funny chain of events our heroes meet “Somewhere in Mexico.” Hannibal and Faceman are on a mission to take down a corrupt, renegade Mexican General Tuco. Along the way to rescue Faceman, Hannibal runs into B.A. in the Mexican desert. Then to make their daring escape back onto American soil they enlist former Capt. H.M. Murdock, a mental patient at a military hospital.
“Eight years and Eighty successful missions later”, the group are an established elite combat unit stationed in Iraq. They take on a highly classified Black ops mission to steal back US property from Iraqi insurgents. They are successful, but without giving too much of the movie away; they are framed for a crime they did not commit and are all sentenced to serve ten years in separate maximum security prisons. But that is not the end of the A-Team’s shenanigans. They break out, and start their mission to clear their names.

The only thing that disappointed me about the A-Team was that B.A. Baracus did not whistle the iconic theme tune, while posing to be a window cleaner, as seen in the trailer.

The whole movie is action packed and hilarious with amazing and ridiculous scenes. I would suggest this movie to anyone and everyone, fans of the old series and those who haven’t seen an episode.

All in all I give this movie a very happy 9/10