The A-Team

My favorite of the two big summer movies of last week! As I write this I really want to see it again. A-TEAM has all the fun that a action movie should have. I really don't remember a lot of the t.v show so a few weeks ago a friend of mine refreshed my memory the best he could. He told me it was tough guy smarts mixed with Magnificent Seven attitude helping out people and friends in sticky situations every week. Four soldiers get charged for a crime they did not commit and get sent to jail. They break out of prison and go into hiding in L.A and become soldiers of fortune helping the helpless. The crime that they got set up for was never a pilot episode but rather just the shows introduction every week.
This new movie tells us how these guys became the A-Team. The director Joe(Smokin Ace's) Carnahan really knows his A-Team because right from the start he nails the tone of the series pitch perfect if not better. It's like he's telling us "You remember how fun the A-Team was? Well, get a load of this"! To start off the fun Carnahan introduces us to the future team in the deserts of Mexico in a Sergio Leone fashion, which of course I thought was very cool. What happens next is a very very entertaining strong character driven action movie!

Eight years after a fateful (and explosive) mission in Mexico united four unlikely Army Rangers, The "crack commando unit" led by Colonel Hannibal Smith are stationed in Iraq and sent on a mission by the CIA to go into the heart of Bagdad and retrieve a set of stolen money printing plates that are a threat to national security. Hannibal and his team, comprising of suave con-man "Faceman" Peck, burly B. A Baracus and comically insane "Howling Mad" Murdock, succeed in their mission. Returning to base, something goes wrong. The team in the wrong place at the wrong time, are charged with the famous "a crime they did not commit" from the series, dishonorably discharged and sent to separate prisons. Six months later, Hannibal Smith escapes and breaks his teammates out and start their first mission as the A-Team, to clear their name.


It's a blessing to see a real action director turn what most will pass off as tentpole summer action movie fluff into a bad ass action film with awesome characters! Carnahan knows his craft, all the action beats work and only improves on the fun of the original series.
THE A-TEAM just saved the summer movie season of 2010!