The A

The A-Team

Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton Jackson

"A crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team." – Opening of the Television series “A-Team”

“A-Team, I need your help. Can you take out the Marmaduke movie?” - Me

Nostalgia is the liquid mercury on the hands of memory. Too much and a person goes mad as a hatter. Reason and rationality go out the window as one reflects fondly on their childhood and this is nowhere truer than when it comes to television. Until recent years, for the most part, the boob tube was a desert landscape of entertainment with the occasional tumbleweed of quality blowing by.

Don’t believe me? Let me walk you through the average year that was my childhood. Because there was four channels, no Fox yet, cable was something your rich friend had and video stores actually rented VHS tape players, you prayed it was not an election year because that sucked two weeks out of your watching schedule as every network covered the conventions. Billy Graham and Bob Hope destroyed your Saturdays at least once a month. Jerry Lewis with his telethon and Bert Parks belting out “here she comes, Miss America” took at least two more evenings of your life. Debates, and our President addressing the nation, blanketed the airwaves. Then there was “Bond” week, Lawrence Welk, and “Hee-Haw.” If you navigated through all of that, you got to watch your favorite television show, and they stunk, but most people did not know any better. “Happy Days,” “Lavern and Shirley,” “Nell,” “Full House,” “Who’s The Boss,” “Mr. Belvedre,” “Gowning Pains,” “Webster,” zombie television at its worst and those were some of the better shows. There are certain television shows from that era that a person would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the pitch meeting. “B.J. and the Bear” which tried to cash in on the Smokie and the Bandit gravy train, but the twist is Bear was a monkey. “Delta House,” imagine Animal House with all the stuff that made the movie funny removed, because crude humor had no place on family television. It was like fraternity life combined with a Quaker meeting. Imagine all your favorite television stars competing in athletic events. Sounds cool? Then imagine Telly Savalas, in a red tracksuit and gold jewelry smoking a cigarette as he runs around a track, as Robert Conrad takes what is happening way too seriously. Before there was a “Special Olympics”, there was “Battle of the Network Stars.” It was like watching a gym class at a computer camp. “Chico and the Man,” I cannot get a girl to go out with me, but Freddie Prinze was the king of love living in a van behind a greasy filling station run by the man. I could go on for hours, crap, crap, crap, crap.

This cultural wasteland was one of the reasons that “The A-Team” seemed so great at the time. Four Vietnam War veterans on the run from a crime they did not commit, doing good deeds, usually for free. There was “Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard), B.A. Baracus (Mr. T), “Howling Mad” Murdock (Dwight Schultz), and Templeton “Face” Peck (Dirk Benedict), but the real stars were the pyrotechnics, explosions, guns, and the black GMC van. For five seasons, every episode was exactly the same. The episode would open with some poor down and out person or group, usually a young woman (who Face would be attracted to later on) with an elderly father, being terrorized by a gang of some kind. They would contact the A-Team (Which comes from the military nickname for Operational Detachments Alpha (ODA) teams. The movie gets this wrong.) for help. Hannibal, wearing a disguise would test the clients to see if they were legit. Once they passed, Hannibal would proudly announce, “You just hired the A-Team.” More often than not, the fee would be waved before the closing credits. Murdock would have to be liberated from the loony bin, usually by Face, where he would act all crazy. Murdock and B.A. would engage in some verbal jabbing before B.A. would fall for the old date rape drug trick, because they had to knock him out to get him on an airplane, because the muscle-bound he-man was afraid of flying. Hannibal would confront the bad guy because he was “on the jazz.” There would be a counter-attack by the baddies. The team would be captured. Imprisoned, usually with the exact supplies they needed to build a weapon or vehicle of some kind, there would be a musical montage as they build what they need to break out. Freeing themselves, they would defeat the opponents, with amazingly no one getting hurt. Hannibal would light his cigar and proclaim, “I love it when a plan comes together.” The team would then make their escape as authorities showed up. Week after week, month after month, for 98 episodes, it was always the same. Made for TV warfare, with no one getting injured, basically live action Road Runner cartoons. Many critics believe the success of the series lay in the fact that it was really a Three Stooges-like comedy masquerading as an action series.

It was a massive success, staying in the top ten for its first three seasons before dropping like a stone its last two seasons. Its real success laid in merchandising. Like a summer blockbuster, NBC made a fortune in the sales of action figures and the van, comic books, cereals, popsicles, t-shirts, sheets, novels, and every piece of junk that could be imagined. There was even a newspaper comic strip. Kids loved the show.

One little problem, kids grow up and become studio executives and nostalgia-filled ticket buyers want to relive their childhoods. It is little wonder that an A-Team movie has been in the works since the mid-1990s. The only difference between the television series and the movie is that the war the A-Team fought in has been updated to the Iraq War and Face’s relationship to the other three has a few more twists and turns. Like any good superhero franchise, the first movie gives the origin story in Iraq.

Their crime? Remember the Baghdad art museum being looted? Of course they are accused of stealing the art and of course make their escape with the help of Face. Imagine the television show with a $100 million budget written by the gentleman, Michael Brandt, who wrote Wanted, 2 Fast 2 Furious, and 3:10 to Yuma. If this sounds attractive to you, then this movie is for you. It is what it is, a modern updated big screen version of “The A-Team”. This is not Hamlet. If you expect anything more than stupidity, look somewhere else. My biggest problem is, for me, the A-Team are Peppard, Schultz, Benedict, and Mr. T. Bradley Cooper is not as good looking as Benedict. Neeson, while a major movie star similar to Peppard when he took the role, does not have the commanding presence of the originator, who had developed in countless films and “Banacek.” Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who legitimately is a tougher man as a UFC fighter than Mr. T, who was a manufactured tough guy by the studio in the fictional contest “World’s Toughest Bouncer,” pro wrestling matches and Rocky III, does a poor man’s impression of T and does not have the comical likeable overtones. Like Jackson, the movie lacks the humor that made the original a favorite among ten-year-olds.

Verdict: An Okay Action Flick, but not The A-Team