The A-Team

The A -Team *** (3 Stars)

Director – Joe Carnahan

Starring – Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, and Patrick Wilson

MPAA - Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence throughout, language and smoking

Another underestimated summer remake, “The A -Team” turns out to be a fun pop-corn flick with lots of laughs and some good explosions. This rebooting of the old TV show is actually pretty entertaining and worth catching at a discount theater or at the video store when it is released. While I am too young to have seen any of the episodes – except a rerun or two at grandma’s house – I found “The A –Team” to be an exciting and witty film, one that I plan on renting in a few months to get a little bit more of the action.

Like I said I have not really seen enough of the old TV episodes to know if anything but the names are the same in this updated film, so I am going to try and judge this film on its merits as a movie and not as a faithful remake. “The A – Team” is kind of one of those guilty pleasure films. It is a movie that you have to go into with no expectations so you can just sit back and enjoy what happens.



The movie starts off with bringing the four Rangers together in their first mission wreaking havoc on a dirty Mexican general. Then we are fast forwarded “8 years and 80 successful missions” later to the Iraq war where the four are brought together to take on one very important and classified mission. It goes off without a hitch until they are double crossed and end up stripped of rank and in jail. From here they must break out and clear their names.

This movie manages to go pretty quickly from a heist film to a prison break film, back to a heist film and then over to a revenge flick fairly quickly without leaving us as an audience confused at all. The writing for the film wasn’t amazing, and this movie was far from not having any plot holes, but it was not a serious film, and no one was taking it seriously. Instead all the actors were just having a fun time messing around and being funny. Even the double crossing bad guy was kind of a goofball.

I really enjoyed the film’s casting. The actors were a lot of fun to watch and listen too. They took a mediocre script and managed to make it entertaining and lively. Bradley Cooper and Patrick Wilson both kind of stole the show for me. They are good looking guys who know how to make an audience laugh with their clever come-backs and wicked smirks. Wilson plays the CIA agent Lynch. He was kind of diabolical but very funny as he fumes at his incompetent CIA cohorts. Cooper was the smooth talking Face who got the girls and the good one-liners.



There was also really good chemistry between B.A. Baracus and Murdock (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Sharlto Copley, respectively). The two kind of had a love/hate relationship. Murdock as the pilot has to deal with B.A.’s fear of flights and dopes B.A. up a few times, B.A. then threatens to “kill all you fools” until he is soothed as Murdock promises B.A his favorite cooked dinner. Copley’s half insane Murdock was a hilarious character whose bizarre antics and country accent made for a flavorful addition to the cast.

I can’t help but compare this film with “The Losers”, another action/comedy/buddy flick with pretty much the same plot. Notice that this summer has done a lot of the same movies over and over again. “Bounty Hunter”, “Date Night”, “Killers”, “Knight and Day”, all were pretty similar movies involving couples getting into trouble and then getting to blow stuff up. Then “The Losers”, “The A-Team”, and “The Expendable” all with a bunch of action gurus blowing more stuff up while being double crossed and having to clear their names. It is just funny to see the different studios all making the same movies.



Anyone who liked “The Losers” will for sure enjoy “The A-Team”. Both films are very similar and I enjoyed watching them. I don’t think I could pick a preferred film. Both had great one-liners and almost no plot to get in the way of all the action and laughs. These are perfect guy movies.

One thing that kind of bugged me with “The A-Team” was that some of the action was just too fast to see. The camera swung around quickly, blurring the scenes and it was impossible for me to catch what was happening to the characters. I prefer crisp clean action where I don’t lose track of whose who and what is going on. There were too many times where the action on screen just got fuzzy or too dark and it was hard to figure out what exactly was going on. On top of that a lot of the one-liners were masked by loud explosions and music. In theater they call it holding for laughs, and while movies are not theater there still needs to be a pause here and there for the audience to catch the jokes.


“The A-Team” delivers an overall entertaining if not simple movie. The plot and script are average and no one is going to the Oscars on this film. But because those involved with the film were able to take things lightly, and not get too serious with the movie, the whole thing was able to remain and energetic and exciting action movie that beats out a lot of the competition to date. I’ll tie this film with “The Losers” at 7.5 out of 10. Nothing exceptional was done here, but all in all it was a fun flick to watch.

Sex/Nudity 4 out of 10 – A man is seen shirtless a few times. It is implied that a man and a woman have had sex as a woman takes her panties off of a bed and puts them in her pocket. A man kisses a woman, she slaps him and they kiss passionately. A man admits to sleeping with another man’s wife. Some women wear cleavage revealing outfits.

Violence/Gore – 6 out of 10 – There are a lot of explosions, gun fights, fist fights, and killing. The action is stylized but still realistic. A lot of people are shot and punched some people die, but there is relatively little blood. No dead bodies are seen or anything like that.

Profanity – 5 out of 10 – 2 incomplete F-words (Mother F - then an explosion cuts them off), 3 military WTFs (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot), a few birdie flips, 2 or 3 B-words, 30 or so S-words, 50 or so mild obscenities and religious exclamations.