The A-Team

Light on substance but silly and full of surprises, the A-Team is an enjoyable, dumb action movie that it's OK to like, says Oliver Good

The A-Team from left, Face (Bradley Cooper), Murdock (Sharlto Copley), Hannibal (Liam Neeson) and BA Baracus (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson).

In one of the opening fight sequences of The A-Team, the character BA Baracus (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson) is shown raining hammer-blows on to a bunch of unlucky bad guys. As he raises his left fist the shot freezes to reveal the word "pity" tattooed across his knuckles, seconds later the word "fool" is shown on his right.

The gag - a reference to one of the most memorable catchphrases of any 1980s TV series - leaves little doubt about the tone of the rest of the film: a heady mix of action and comedy. It's a tough combination to get right and there are times when the movie flips frantically between overkill and farce - but for the most part, the director Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin' Aces) walks the tightrope skilfully.

The film loosely follows the original story in the TV series, but also shows how the "crack commando unit" came to meet in the first place. A madcap rescue operation in Mexico establishes The A-Team's four members, who instantly bond when they discover a shared military background. Even with his lanky figure and the remnants of the Irish accent, Liam Neeson nails the cigar-chomping strategist Hannibal wonderfully. Bradley Cooper is also excellent as the sharp-suited narcissist, Face, and gets many of the film's best lines. Ultimate-fighter-turned-actor Jackson definitely looks the part as BA, but his voice is too soft and he is made to repeat the same joke time and again (essentially, refusing to board planes). District 9's Sharlto Copley does an excellent job of mimicking Dwight Schultz's demented chopper pilot "Howling Mad" Murdock, but the character is criminally underused.

The opening sequence acts like a checklist, cleverly ticking-off almost all of the famous catchphrases and retro references early on. "I love it when a plan comes together" is given a spin in various forms during the first few minutes, then pops up many more times before the end of the film, just in case anyone missed it. The story then moves to the Middle East, where the team is engaged in some of the more covert (but always benevolent) military operations in the Iraq war. But when Hannibal accepts a particularly dangerous job from a shady CIA operative (Patrick Wilson) involving a lorry load of counterfeit cash and the printing plates to make billions more - the group quickly find themselves in front of a military tribunal. "Framed for a crime they didn't commit", the four are dishonorably discharged and confined to separate jails, thousands of miles apart - but even that doesn't hold them for long. After four separate jail breaks, they head to Germany in a bid to clear their names. All the while they are being hunted by a military officer (and Face's former love) played by Jessica Biel and a dastardly team-up of Wilson's rogue CIA agent and the leader of a shady private security firm, (both of which are easy to hate, right?).

The film is at its funniest and most endearing when the four team members are given time to interact and plot their near-impossible operations. But the need to crowbar in a new action sequence every 10 minutes - each more ludicrously ambitious than the next - quickly becomes boring. At one stage we find the four inside a tank, plummeting through the sky after falling from an exploded plane. Not only do the group try to use the cannon to fire at attacking planes during free fall, but they even attempt to "fly" the machine by firing at the ground, before "safely" landing in an Alpine lake. Unfortunately the sequence is so ridiculous that it's impossible to take anything else in the film seriously and (much like pre-Casino Royale James Bond) all sense of danger or suspense evaporates.

Other than a few attempts at character development - BA dabbles with pacifism (seriously) while Hannibal discovers that you can't plan for every single contingency in life - the film is incredibly light on substance. Thankfully though, it avoids being a preachy First Blood-like parable about the abandonment of war veterans. A cynic might say that this film simply takes the best-loved things about the series and stabs a syringe full of adrenalin right into its heart, but its impossible not to notice the amount of love that all involved seem to have for this project. Incredibly silly, surprisingly funny and completely over the top, this is pretty much everything an A-Team movie should be: a big, dumb action movie that it's OK to like.