“The A-Team” review

The A-Team was a popular (at its peak, it attracted around 40 million viewers) television show in the 1980s that revolved around four men who were constantly on the run from the government for a crime they didn’t commit. Enter its contemporary re-imagining, named (get this) “The A-Team”. It stars Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quinton Jackson as the four men, and the plot remains essentially the same although obviously the time setting has been shifted to modern times, not the ’80s in which the original show took place.

Regardless, the original TV show was about big, grand, cartoonish, over-the-top action, and that’s pretty much also the primary focus of this 2010 remake. The four principal actors (Neeson, Copley, Cooper and Jackson) never once take their roles seriously, and subsequently are a total blast to watch. Neeson and Copley in particular really ham it up, adding a layer of sheer craziness to the film. Also, it’s really hard not to admire just how over-the-top the film often goes. Most action films try to keep at least one foot dipped in the pond that is realism, but the “A-Team” absconds entirely from even the slight trace of reality.

The aspects about this particular film that bugged me are mostly technical. For one: The visual effects in this film are absolutely awful. One particular shot late in the film where hundreds of crates collapse unto each other would look more fitting in a Nintendo 64 game than a $120-million-dollar action film. Another thing about the film that was absolutely wretched was the cinematography. In recent films like “Cloverfield” and the Bourne series, filmmakers have used a handheld camera to add an element of instability and shakiness (hence the term, “Shaky-cam”). Director Joe Carnahan employs “Shaky-cam” here, and the results are disastrous. The action sequences are often impossible to follow, simply because the camera is constantly shaking and the editing is far too quick. This unfortunately ruins a pretty massive chunk of the film, considering how action-centric the film is.

Overall, the “A-Team” is grand, dumb action. Considering that recently, Hollywood has tried (and mostly failed) to gravitate towards more adult, mature action films, it is pretty cool to see something of a tribute to the frivolously violent action flicks of 1980s. That said, “The A-Team” is executed pretty poorly, with terrible visual effects, as well as unintelligible cinematography and editing. It’s a shame that some hilariously outlandish performances and action sequences had to be buried underneath this problems.

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