Gandhi's Revenge!

So about a week ago, I wrote up a review of sorts for the big blockbuster re-imagining of Stephen J. Cannell's "The A-Team". It was very long, and not terribly coherent.

Shortly before I actually finished the post, my douchebag computer crashed. After I rebooted, I found that Blogspot apparently decided not to auto-save my post, and two hours of typing was thrown right out the window.

I was disheartened, and also lazy, so I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to type it all out once again. Besides, I couldn't remember half of what I wrote, anyway.

Seven days later, I've also seen Tom Cruise's return to big-screen action in James Mangold's "Knight and Day". So I have returned to tell the world what I think about these movies, as well as some other things, in my own rambling manner.

Enjoy.

I never cared for "The A-Team". I used to watch it as a child, only because my parents enjoyed it. They were the adults, and they decided what we all watched on the big color TV in the living room. Sure, my brother and I could always go back to our cramped little bedroom and watch "Night Court" re-runs on our 10 inch black & white television, but it's just not the same.

Not to say that "The A-Team" wasn't entertaining. It was a fun, disposable way to spend an hour, I suppose. But we children had other things on our minds. We were really just biding our time until our parents decided to go to bed. Sometime around 11pm, my brother and I would sneak out of our bedroom and 10 inch Monochrome Ted Koppel, into the living room where we would watch R-rated movies on HBO and Cinemax.

It didn't really matter what the movie was, what mattered to us was that we were breaking the rules. We'd watch plenty of gratuitous violence and catch the occassional glimpse of nudity, and we'd be happy. Of course, sometimes we would fall asleep in the living room while we were enjoying ourselves, and that spelled trouble.

When the adults woke up in the morning and found us passed out in front of the TV, still tuned to HBO, we were inevitably grounded. But it was worth it.

Was I trying to make a point? Oh, right. I have no nostalgic love for "The A-Team". In fact, I have very little nostalgic love for many of the things I enjoyed when I was a child. I don't give a damn about the "Transformers" cartoons, or "Thundercats", or "Masters of the Universe". I stopped loving "The Goonies" when I was a teenager. I do still have a soft spot for "The Monster Squad". That's mostly due to the Scary German Guy.

After the kids become friends with the old man, and they talk about monsters over pie for a spell, when the kids depart, Fat Kid tells Scary German Guy that he really knows a lot about monsters. The old man agrees, and closes the door, and we see the concentration camp tattoo on his arm. I had no idea what that tattoo meant when I was a child, but watching it as a teenager, I finally got it. It's a small moment, but it really works.

Back to "The A-Team". I am not a Mr. T fan. I never understood the allure of this guy. He's got a mohawk and an obscene amount of gold chains around his neck. he can barely act. He says "fool" a lot and always looks constipated. He was fine in "Rocky 3", I suppose, but he wasn't required to do much in that film, aside from swinging his meaty fists and growling.

But I suppose that Mr. T is a part of the only thing I really liked about "The A-Team" TV series. Of course, I am talking about B.A. Baracus and his irrational fear of flying. His buddies had to drug him into oblivion to get him on a plane. I always thought that was funny. So thanks for that, Mr. T. I would have seen the movie as a complete failure if this aspect of Baracus' personality was removed. It's really the character's only stand-out personality trait.

So what about the movie? Well, it's an origin story. The first twenty minutes of the film are entirely dedicated to getting the team together. Faceman and Hannibal are working together in Mexico, doing... something... I think they're trying to take down some renegade Mexican General. It's not really important, I suppose. Faceman's been captured by the General's goons, and he's in a lot of trouble. He's taking it well, however, laughing it up, generally having a good time.

Hannibal happens upon Mr. Baracus who's just tooling around Mexico in his rape van, for some reason. It turns out that Baracus used to be an Army Ranger, though he was dishonorably discharged. Hannibal convinces his new best friend Baracus to help him save Faceman, and the trio escape from the General's clutches. They stop by an Army hospital (in Mexico?) and grab Murdock, who is completely out of his mind. He hotwires a medical chopper, and they fly toward the US border, purued by the General in a chopper of his own.

Murdock does some fancy flying, which terrifies Baracus, planting the seeds for his aerophobia. The rag-tag team cruises over the border, and the General's chopper is blown to smithereens by US fighter jets. Apparently, this was all part of Hannibal's master plan, as he chuckles to himself and lights a cigar.

The opening is a lot of fun, although it seems a little too convenient that Hannibal would just happen upon B.A. Baracus and Murdock, who are complete strangers and no longer affiliated with the US Armed Forces, in the middle of Mexico. If Hannibal hadn't found these two, Both he and Faceman would be fucking dead. Hannibal loves it when a plan comes together.

I'm nitpicking, though. The film is completely over-the-top and makes no apologies about it. This is not the real world. It's a big, expensive movie. It's kind of refreshing, in that respect.

Anyway, the film jumps ahead 8 years, and the A-Team has been working together ever since. I'm not sure how Baracus got re-instated, or how Murdock was allowed back in active duty considering he's out of his mind, but that's not important. The team is in Iraq, and they report to Major Dad, and that's awesome.

CIA Agent Nite Owl shows up and tells the team that some naughty Iraqis are in possession of some US Treasury plates and around 1 billion dollars in counterfeit American currency. Nite Owl wants the A-Team to retrieve the money and the stolen plates, but Major Dad isn't so sure. Hannibal throws caution to the wind and tells the team to get ready for some action.

Action ensues, and when the A-Team returns with the shit, some Blackwater mercs, led by some douche named Pike, blow it all up. Wait, not "Blackwater". I think they called themselves "Black Forest". Eh, same difference. Major Dad also gets blown up, and now the A-Team is in trouble. The fellas are all discharged and sent to federal prison. Oh noes!!!

You already know how this works out. The A-Team has to break out of prison and get their revenge on Pike, because he killed Major Dad, as well as Nite Owl, because he hung them out to dry. They need to clear their names, and save the day, A-Team style.

I'd rather not recap the whole movie, because I just don't have the strength to type all of that out once more. Instead, I'll briefly discuss the climax of the film, before I talk about some of the things I really enjoyed about the film.

The Climactic Battle!

The A-Team plays a large-scale shell game with some shipping containers and a big crane. They blow up some bad guys with radio-controlled cars. Major Dad wasn't dead, he faked his own death because he was in on Nite Owl's scheme to control the currency plates and become exceedingly wealthy. He turned on Nite Owl and teamed up with Pike, and Nite Owl wants him dead. Luckily, Major Dad get killed earlier while chatting with Hannibal, although the A-Team pretends that Major Dad is still alive to draw out Nite Owl.

Wait, does any of that make sense? Holy shit, I don't think it does.

Anyway, Murdock dresses up like Major Dad, hiding his head under a bucket lined with ketchup packets. Nite Owl shoots Murdock in his bucket, leaving a satisfying ketchup splatter on the wall. Jessica Biel and a bunch of federal agents arrest Nite Owl, and Baracus powerbombs Pike, shattering his neck.

Wow. Now none of that makes sense! It's like the ramblings of a schizophrenic. It's like something Brick Tamland would say.

So the A-Team is free and clear, right? Wrong! Don Draper shows up and says some stuff, then the boys get arrested for breaking out of prison. The movie ends with that familiar narration from the TV series, and the credits roll. So in a way, the movie is a prequel to the TV show. Except it's a lot better than the TV show.

So, good things? I thought you'd never ask.

#3: I ain't gettin' on no plane!

I am happy to say that B.A. Baracus' irrational fear of flying is intact in the film. His friends do have to drug the poor bastard to get him on a plane. And it's funny. It's funny every single time. I'm not too keen on the film trying to explain his aerophobia, but it's a small matter.

Besides, Murdock really fucked with his head when he was flying that medical chopper in the prologue.

#2: I love it when a cast comes together!

Joe Carnahan really knew what he was doing when he put his A-Team together. He took Jiam Neeson, a weathered veteran not known for his comedic work, and hooked him up with Bradley Cooper, a charming fellow, yet still an unknown quantity as a leading man.

When the film opens, Hannibal and Faceman have already been working together for some time, and Neeson and Cooper sell that friendship. They sell that history. We believe that these guys have been comrades for a while, that they've been through some shit together, and they've never lost their sense of humor.

Then Carnahan throws in Rampage Jackson, an MMA fighter with very little acting experience under his belt, to portray B. A. Baracus. And he does a fine job. He's clearly having a very good time in this film, and that more than makes up for his lack of on-set experience. He's not the best actor in the film, but he leaves Mr. T drowning in his wake.

Plus, he could totally kick Mr. T's ass. That helps.

Add Sharlto Copley, and you're making magic. This guy was the real question mark for me when I sat down to watch this film. I loved him in "District 9", but he seemed completely unsuited to this role, at least as far as I was concerned. This guy had no prior acting experience before "District 9", which was largely improvised, and he has a very distinct accent. And he was going to play Howlin' Mad Murdock, the lunatic pilot with the southern drawl?

Sharlto Copley blew me away in this movie. Where Dwight Schultz always played Murdock as more of an eccentric idiot, Copley turns Murdock into a genuine madman. He's always slipping in and out of accents and personalities, spouting a bunch of weird dialogue that made me laugh out loud. He's easily the most entertaining actor in the film, and I only wish that he had more screentime.

He spends most of the third act with his head in a bucket. That was a mistake.

#1: Have you ever seen a tank fly?

We've all seen the moment in the trailer. You love it or you hate it. Predator drones blow up the A-Team's plane, and they climb into a tank located in the cargo hold. As it descends, the drones attack the tank, and Faceman blasts the drones with a mounted 50 caliber gun.

That's the scene that made me want to see the movie. When I saw that ridiculously awesome moment in the trailer, I knew I was going to see this fucking film.

In the final film, this sequence exceeded my lofty expectations.

After breaking Murdock out of a US military hospital in Germany, the A-Team steals a C-130 and takes off. Nite Owl dispatches the predator drones to kill them, and the fun begins.

They attempt to evade the drones, but their plane has taken heavy damage. Just in the nick of time, the boys scramble into the tank stored in the C-130's cargo hold. The plane explodes, and the tank plummets. Luckily, the tank was equipped with parachutes, which quickly deploy, slowing their hellish descent. But the drones aren't done with them yet.

Baracus wakes up from his drug-induced coma just in time to see Faceman pop the hatch to shoot at the nefarious drones with an awesome 50 caliber mounted gun. Baracus screams incoherently as Faceman takes potshots at the drones, having the time of his life. He manages to destroy the drones, but not before they damage two of the parachutes. The tank is now falling face-first, rocketing downward to merge with the infinite.

Not to worry! Hannibal has a plan. He orders his men to load the tank's main gun, and they begin strategically firing the main gun, first to change the tank's trajectory, then to slow the tank's descent. The tank ends up plunging into a sleepy German lake, capsizing some poor old man's tiny fishing boat.

Moments later, the tank drives out of the lake, and Murdock pops out of the hatch to ask some old lady for directions. Classic.

Yes, Dear Imaginary Reader, the A-Team manages to fly a tank. Sure, it's impossible, but it's fun! And it's my favorite moment in the film.

Now what didn't work?

The rest of the cast!

Patrick Wilson plays "Lynch", a slimy CIA agent who sets up the A-Team in the prologue, and spends the rest of the movie trying to kill them. He tries to bring his own brand of manic energy to the role, but it never really works for me. His character is supposed to be in the same vein as Jason Patric's enigmatic "Max" character from "The Losers", but he never reaches Patric's legendary heights in that role.

In "The Losers", Jason Patric was the only stand-out, the guy who actually made the whole endeavor worthwhile. Without him, "The Losers" would be a complete footnote. Without Patrick Wilson, "The A-Team" would be just fine.

The villain Pike is portrayed by Brian Bloom, a man whose greatest claim to fame (as far as I'm concerned) is his classic role as "Generic Male Troll Merchant" in the MMO "Everquest II". He's the kind of villain who tries to be badass, but he can never pull it off. His villainous quips need a little work, too. He just lazily turns around whatever the heroes say to him, the infamous "rubber-glue" gambit. Examples:

"I'm gonna kill you!" "You're not gonna kill me! I'm gonna kill YOU!"

"You're lucky there are so many cops, here!" No, YOU'RE lucky there are so many cops, here!"

Great job, Generic Male Human Enemy.

Jessica Biel exists. That's the best thing I can say about her. I have never seen her actually act in a movie. I don't know if she's capable of real acting. She's a pretty face, but there's no substance. She has a pretty thankless role in the movie, and she's not a good enough actor to actually bring anything special to it.

Whenever she wasn't on-screen, I basically forgot she was even in the movie. She's supposed to have some sort of romantic relationship with Faceman, but they share no chemistry.

They should have hired Gemma Arterton. Just because.

Gerald McRaney showed up, and I realized that he was still alive. He's a good actor. Watch "Jericho", or "Deadwood", and you'll know what I'm talking about. Watch "The A-Team", and you'll see the man do his best "Saddam Hussein, fresh from the spider-hole" impression. Aside from that, he's not really given enough screentime to leave a lasting impression.

When he's revealed to be the secret third party behind the A-Team's betrayal, we're supposed to be shocked. We're not. Because there are no other characters in the movie. Of course, Major Dad was the secret bad guy! There were no other options!

Now if Jessica Biel were the secret bad guy...

One more point: B.A. Baracus and his character arc. Baracus is a soldier. He has no problems with killing, as long as it's for the right reasons. That's all well and good. After the team gets betrayed by Major Dad and Nite Owl, when Hannibal and Faceman break Baracus out of stir, we're all surprised to see that the man has allowed his hair to grow in, eliminating his trademark mohawk. We're even more surprised to learn that Baracus has been reading a lot of Gandhi in the joint, and that he's decided that he's done with killing.

That's right, B.A. Baracus has become a blubbering pussy! He spends the entire second act, as well as the majority of the third act, upholding his "noble" code. He wears a knitcap and sulks. Of course he's going to change his mind during the climax. Of course he's going to shave his head and let his mohawk fly free by the time the credits roll. But the character of Baracus is saddled with this bullshit B-plot that ultimately goes nowhere.

Is it supposed to deepen his character? If so, then the film fails in this respect. When the A-Team shows up at the climax, and Baracus removes his knitcap to reveal his glorious mohawk to powerbomb Pike straight to Hell, the audience is not surprised. The audience is just pissed off because the character of B.A. Baracus was not allowed to actually be his character until the end of the film.

It's fucking stupid. This is a little more than a nitpick for me. It's the only really serious flaw in the film, as far as the main cast is concerned.

In conclusion, "The A-Team" is really a lot of fun. I had a blast watching it, and even forgave some of the film's gaping plot holes, because I had such a good time. It seems that America does not agree with me, because it's tanking at the box office. It's a crying shame, too, because I would have loved to see this become a franchise. The public sucks, anyway.

"The A-Team" is big, ridiculous, and it made me laugh. If it's still playing in your neck of the woods, Dear Imaginary Reader, go see it. Have a good time.

I'll return shortly with part two of my epic blog entry, in which I will discuss "Knight and Day" and some other stuff. Wait with baited breath!