Smokin' Aces director Joe Carnahan lends his signature kinetic, seriocomic stylings to this big screen rendition of the small screen classic The A-Team. The film's opening sequence is essentially the origin of the team, introducing our four main protagonists – U.S. Army Rangers Col. John "Hannibal" Smith (Liam Neeson), Lt. Templeton "Faceman" Peck (Bradley Cooper), Capt. "Howlin' Mad" Murdock (Sharlto Copley) and Sgt. B.A. Baracus (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) – before moving on to the main narrative.
In the last days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq (that's how we know the film is set in the future), the A-Team is given an off-the-books mission to snatch back some U.S. printing plates (it's a long story, but one inspired by true events). As expected, they're set-up and betrayed. Court-martialed and stripped of their ranks, medals and honor, the team is split up and sent off to separate prisons. As if that's going to stop them from eventually escaping, reuniting and going after those responsible for the injustice that's befallen them. The A-Team is pursued by a sketchy CIA agent named Lynch (Watchmen's Patrick Wilson) as well as Face's ex-flame, military cop Lt. Sosa (Jessica Biel). Although the film was shot entirely in Vancouver, the story takes the team around the globe, from Mexico and Iraq to Germany and Los Angeles.
The A-Team may very well be summer 2010's most pleasant surprise. It's a balls-to the-walls action flick that owes more to 1980s action movies than it does to the '80s TV series that it's adapted from. The film captures the spirit of the show and the camaraderie among its titular quartet while jettisoning much of the campy humor and ramping up the action to almost absurd levels (a tank falls out of a plane for Pete's sake!). Indeed, there's an action set-piece seemingly every 15 minutes, and yet the movie isn't so breathlessly paced as to forget to pause to have some quieter moments (even if it's just banter).
We don't know much about who these guys were before they met each other save for B.A., the only one with a bit of backstory (enough to explain where his mohawk came from). We know Hannibal was in Desert Storm and that he and Face have been brothers-in-arms longer than the rest of the team, but otherwise these guys seem to live in the moment moving from one mission to the next until their military careers (and their sense of identity) are stripped from them. Performance-wise, the four main actors for the most part do a fine job in paying homage to their small screen predecessors even as they attempt to make these beloved characters their own.
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