The A-Team

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day...

"Because Over-Kill is Underrated, My Friend"

I was never a huge fan of the TV version of "The A-Team," still in syndication around the country. A male version of "Charlie's Angels," with a for-hire team of whack-job mercenaries (that the producers claimed was inspired by the odd-ball cops of "Hill Street Blues") it was a huge hit until it ran out of steam, cycling through the script-library of adventure shows—a kind of manic, cartoon hybrid of "The Rockford Files" and "Mission: Impossible."Because the source material was rather poor, the news of a big-screen remake was not the sort that would make one hyper-anticipatory. Just the opposite; "The A-Team" sounded like a B-movie waiting to happen, perhaps even falling lower on the alphabetical scale if the creatives involved were as by-the-playbook as the series runners. 

Happily—giddily—the folks making The A-Team knew what worked with the old series and have amped it up to the nth degree, even occasionally throwing a TV-trope into the mix to show you they're not taking this too seriously. It's not Great Cinema—I don't think I can justify paying big bucks seeing it in a theater—but in its looney-toon action sequences, it approaches the manic intensity of child's play with new toys.

It's a sugar-rush.

The old "A's" (Peppard, Benedict, T, and Schultz) were Viet-era grunts, but they've been re-boot-camped to the Persian Punch-Out (and Mr. Cheney says to leave the quagmire comparisons at the door, thanks, and he's got a gun). But they're still the zany merc's they always were, with their complicated strategems, the MacGyver'd weapons, "you-can't-do-that-in-this-vehicle" stunts, and the "pity the fool."  The cast is shake-your-head-til-it-rattles good: Liam Neeson, haggard and stogified, makes a great Col. "Hannibal" Smith—it's nice to see Neeson in something a little lighter, the man needs a break. Bradley Cooper's "Face" has a perpetual shit-eating grin, and no dolby/no squelch for chatting people up (he's worked out and takes off his shirt a lot, ladies). As John Milius said about Arnold Schwarzenegger, if Mr. T didn't exist, they would have to construct one, and they've done that, shoe-horning "Rampage" Jackson into the role. Sadly, he doesn't have "T's" fire that smoulders during the drama scenes, but when required to turn it up to "11," Jackson comes through. But, the curdled cream-of-the-corps is Sharlto Copley as "Howling Mad" Murdock. Fans of the show loved the certified (and certifiable) pilot played by Dwight Schultz (bless 'im), but Copley (who played the harried Afrikanner middle-management hack in District 9—and you liked him in that), takes the role in his teeth and shakes it 'til it squeeks, flecks of mad-foam and scrambled accents flying in all directions. Let this be noted in the ledger—he is going to be big. He's that good. He's that funny. He's that creative, and this is him playing in the minors. There are at least two "Batman" villains with his name on them.  Sharlto. Copley.  Learn to pronounce it. You'll be using it a lot.

They could have put anybody else in this movie and it would be fine, but Patrick Wilson has a field-day with his ghost-in-the-CIA-machine, Agent Lynch. Gerald McRaney (one of those TV-elements I talked about earlier) manages to rise above the material, and Jessica Biel rocks her wardrobe, plays the straight man, and nails the movie's best line (the laughter went for 30 seconds, I clocked it).

High praise.  Brownie points for that.  And the writers weren't lazy,* the special effects crews sloppily crafty—8 of them, but they spent more time on details and in-jokes than they do on photo-realism and I can respect that.  But the direction (by Joe Carnehan—remember when he was "the next big thing" with Narc?) is a mess.  At one point, there's a heated conversation in a photo-booth between two people and you'd swear there was three.  here are odd shots during the mayhem that don't show much—and were obviously "C"-roll cameras—but are there, anyway. And more than that, the cutting scheme assumes we're morons, flashing back to scenes we might have missed adjusting our drool-cup in case we missed "the point." 

They needn't have bothered. "The point," such as it is, is to keep sharpening before it gets dull, which the movie threatens to do at several points. During the "drama," one gets the urge to get a Coke, hit the "head", or text-message, until the next hyper-action sequence comes along, like the hysterical tank-bit, or the child's mayhem with a cargo-tanker, comes along.

It's entertaining.  And that's a gift.

But, like a sugar-high, it doesn't last, and makes one antsy for the next supply of "rush."

Isn't there a big-budget "Magnum: P-I" scheduled?**

* Although you will think they were.  At one point, it will be obvious what is going on, and you will (I have faith in you) go "Wait a minute...that's..."—as every member of the audience I saw it with, did, and felt the need to say it aloud.  I'm going to give the writers credit and say it's another one of the TV-tropes I alluded to earlier—the "obvious switcheroo" that Your Aunt Jessye could figure out.

** Nah. They just re-booted the TV-series.

The Book of Eli

The Book of Eli (The Hughes Brothers, 2010) Eli (Denzel Washington) trudges through a sepia-toned crater-strewn post-apocalypse in slow motion. He's been walking for 30 years, heading West, compelled by voices that a path will be made for him. He should fear no Evil.

Probably because he's the biggest bad-ass in the Valley of Death.

Not exactly chapter and verse of lines he says in the movie, but you get the point: we're talking about a religious-themed apocalypse story, more than a mere Christ-allegory, ala I Am Legend. And the way the Hughes Brothers have put it together, they're making a western of the Shane variety, but it could also be Mad Max (they're similar, especially The Road Warrior), another legendary loaner who must make his way being civilized after civilization has crumbled, like so many over-passes, into rubble.

Now, before we get too far, let us just say that, given what we see in the first five minutes of the film, its ultimate revelation is impossible, maybe the Hughes Bros. thought we'd forget or didn't care, but it's stretching things quite a bit. I could speculate (and give things away) but maybe it's merely sufficient to say that in the scheme of things, you have to take it on Faith, because The Book of Eli is all about Faith. Faith is what drives Eli, he is suffused with it. He has been assured by the voice that a path will be made for him and all will be provided.

He's pretty lucky in that regard. He manages to find potable water and to recharge his I-pod filled with classic rock* (It's all classic rock at this point in time!), and he's particular about weapons, bullets being hard to come by in a land where "one man's garbage is another man's treasure." When he chooses to fight (and he chooses not to a couple of times in the film, choosing, rather, to "stay on the path" than help the victims of an attack), it is with particularly nasty looking long knives—Kukri machetes (I love the Internet)—as well as bows, rifles, pistols (and probably boomerangs if he was in Mad Max's apocalypse), all aimed and fired with deadly accuracy.

So, he's not your typical man of Faith, using it like a weapon. Eli takes his place in the long line of men (and women) with no, or only one, name who have tumbled through the landscape of westerly-headed movies. 

The Hughes Brother owe a large debt to Sergio Leone for this one (and present the receipt by having one of the characters whistle "Cockeye's Theme" from Once Upon a Time in America), but also to John Ford, in an excquisitely composed showdown with the player on the other side who also uses Faith as a weapon, a town-kingpin named Carnegie (played with a Jim Jones quivering fervor by Gary Oldman), who, as in history, has this "thing" about books...and one book in particular that he can use to consolidate his power...three guesses what it is (and I'll be saving the other two for next time). 

But, it's a good respectable movie, although well-telegraphed, and forming a kind of post-apocalyptic "greatest nuclear hits" in one movie, with its "Wild West" motifs fitting like a lead-lined glove. Not a bad movie to watch in the shelter, really.  

* Another "take-it-on-Faith" detail.  Hate to tell you this, kids, but a nuclear pulse will erase all your mp3's, no matter how long you've been collecting.  They're right when they say a nuclear war can ruin your whole day!