Movies / Movie Reviews

The A-Team

By Beth Davies-Stofka
June 17, 2010 - 18:35

I loved watching The A-Team in the 1980s.  It debuted in 1983, a time when life was absolutely awful.  There was no work, and no money, and everyone I knew was barely scraping by.  I had an old black and white TV that someone gave me.  It sat on the floor in my bare apartment.  And my friends would come over so we could sit on the floor with it to watch various fun shows like Dr. Who, Magnum, P.I., and of course, The A-Team.  

These shows carried us out of our doldrums.  The A-Team was particularly effective.  The bad guys were really bad.  The good guys were really decent. Often they were honest people just trying to make a living, but bullied by the immoral, the unscrupulous, and the greedy.  Just like us!  The show would start with some event that would absolutely infuriate us, and then in would come the A-Team, launching a completely improbable scheme that would always result in huge explosions and massive gunfire.  It was such a release!  This was escapism at its best.

Sexy, elegant Hannibal Smith, cigar clamped in his teeth, was supremely confident in his team and his schemes, and since he could take a lot of pain, he could always win.  B.A. Baracus, afraid of flying, could drive anything with wheels and could always beat somebody up when necessary.  Face was flashy, but he was smart.  He could wheel and deal his way in and out of any situation.  And Murdock walked a thin line between totally crazy, and actually pretty canny.  He was a wild card.  No bad guy could deal with him, because he was maddening.  He simply didn't make any sense.

But of course, the best part of the show was the emotion.  You'd just get so wound up over it.  It was very emotional viewing because it's just so unfair when the strong take from the weak.  And then enter the A-Team.  Totally betrayed by their country, laughing at danger, spurning safety and self-interest, they would put the bullies in their place, humiliated – accompanied by huge explosions and massive gunfire.  Did I mention that perk?  I think I did!

So you have to figure I was pretty stoked for this summer's big screen tribute to this 80s mega-hit.  I was a bit worried, too, since Hollywood is much better at botching things than getting them right.  How did they do, bringing Hannibal, B.A., Face, and Howling Mad Murdock back to life?

If your goal is to see the A-Team execute completely improbable schemes that result in huge explosions and massive gunfire, you will be totally satisfied.  If you look forward to seeing these old friends again, or meeting them for the first time (after listening to your parents' stories), you won't be disappointed.  Hannibal suffers a little self-doubt at one point, which is a little weird, and Face is way more awesome now than he was then.  B.A. is a little more articulate, and Murdock is much funnier.  Sometimes there's a little too much talking, and the CGI is, frankly, too obvious.  But this is the A-Team incarnate, brawling their way through Sonora, Baghdad, Frankfurt, and L.A.  There are huge explosions, and massive gunfire!

There is something wrong with the movie, though, and it took me a little while to put my finger on it.  At first I thought it was the bad guys, but they are actually flawless.  They are just as cardboard and cartoony as they were in the 1980s, just as greedy, just as violent, just as smug, and just as willing to destroy anyone in their way.  But I didn't get all wound up about it, the way I used to watching the old show in 1983.  And then I realized what the problem was.  In the movie, the A-Team weren't cast in the role of defenders of the weak.  In the movie, the A-Team set out to defend itself.  It was an origin story, and so we got to see how the team first came together, the crime for which they were framed, how they managed to escape from their high-security prisons, and how they struggled to clear their names.  We found out how they became the mercenaries that we grew to know and love almost thirty years ago.



It's an interesting story, sure, but the movie didn't clamp onto our adrenaline glands and squeeze the way the old show did.  In the old show, the people the A-Team protected were the little guys.  They were us.  And that's why the show was so emotionally satisfying.  It was why it worked as fantasy, wish fulfillment, and release.

This is a time when life kind of sucks yet again, much as it did back in 1983 when the show first debuted.  Once again, there's no money and no work.  It feels like politicians and money lenders and Wall Streeters and Big Petroleum are eating up our hopes and dreams.  This is a perfect time for the A-Team!  We need them to come to our rescue, even if only for a little while.  And instead we got a story about how they dealt with their own issues.  Rats.

Still, it was a fun movie, and just fantastic to see these old friends again.  I felt a little empty as the lights came up.  Our old heroes were gone almost as quickly as they returned.  They won't come to life on our TV screens once a week, not any more.

I guess we'll have to stand up for ourselves!

Rating: B /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12