Underseen Movie: ‘The A-Team’ – A Ralph Report Video Vault Selection

Posted on July 16, 2022 by The Ultimate Rabbit

The movie version of the 1980s television show “The A-Team” is one of those examples of how, as U2 put it in their song “Numb,” too much is not enough. The plot is razor thin, and the stunts defy all things we see as logically possible. And you know what? I didn’t care because I HAD SUCH A BLAST WATCHING IT!!! Many reviewers have been bemoaning how it was not what it could have been. I, on the other hand, prefer to see it for what it is, a highly entertaining film and the kind we usually expect to watch during the summer season.

After a prologue that shows how this team of Army rangers came together, we get thrust right into the action as we catch up with Hannibal, Faceman, B.A. Baracus, and the consistently insane Murdock as they are about to wrap up their tour of duty in Iraq. But before they can leave, they are given another mission to retrieve U.S. treasury plates that insurgents intend on using to make counterfeit money; the same kind of plates we would love to have in our possession as they would allow us to quit our day jobs. Without going into much detail, the plan goes awry, and they get set up to take the fall for something they are completely innocent of. The rest of the movie has them going on a mission to get the plates back and clear their names.

The director behind this unrestricted mayhem is Joe Carnahan. This is the same filmmaker who began his career with the $7,500 budgeted “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane” and later directed one of the best crime thrillers with “Narc.” Not once does he allow us to take the characters or what they are doing at all seriously, and it is clear from the get-go how he wants us to take joy in the utter insanity of everything going on. For those who think this movie could have been more serious and reality-based, you came into it with the wrong expectations.

Just look at the insane things these guys do here. They parachute out of a plane in a tank, and they are forced to steer it by firing the turret. There are other moments that defy simple description, and you just have to watch it without wondering too much over how they pulled this insanity off without a hitch. These are characters who prepare for their missions by doing the impossible, or so it would seem. While Carnahan at times gets caught up in the current trend of action film editing which features quick shots that leaves us a little confused as to what we are watching, he keeps us entertained throughout and even allows us to breathe when we need to. Not every filmmaker allows us to pause for a moment, so this is worth pointing out.

Seeing Liam Neeson here as John “Hannibal” Smith was great fun as it allows him to let loose in a way he doesn’t often. Typically, we see him as a mentor in movies like “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” and “Batman Begins,” but as Hannibal, he doesn’t have to be his old serious self. Once you see him pop a cigar into his mouth and light it up, you can see why Neeson was eager to join this project. The “Taken” actor wanted to have fun and lighten up for a change.

Bradley Cooper plays Templeton “Faceman” Peck, the Casanova of the group who, despite his womanizing ways, still has eyes for Charisa Sosa (Jessica Biel). Cooper has come a long way from beating the crap out of Vince Vaughn in “Wedding Crashers,” and he manages to convince us of his various intentions and has us believing this despite all the craziness he keeps getting caught up in.

The part of B.A. “Bad Attitude” Baracus is played by Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, former UFC Light-Heavyweight champion. I kept thinking that his nickname of “Rampage” won him the part. Taking on a part made famous by Mr. T could not have been an enviable position to be in, but Jackson pulls it off. Is this role a stretch for him? It doesn’t matter because he has us believing in Baracus, and that’s even when this character says he has become a pacifist. We all know that can’t last, and Jackson does surprisingly good work here and without the use of gold chains. Not one is he ever a fool we have to pity.

But the real scene stealer of “The A-Team” is Sharlto Copley who takes on the role of H.M. “Howling Mad” Murdock. It is only when he slips back into his South African accent that you remember he was in one of the very best movies of 2009, “District 9.” Having said that, he actually pulls off a compelling southern accent here, showing us he is a far more talented actor than we first realized. Watching him go utterly nuts, be it jump-starting a car with a defibrillator or singing a Dead or Alive song while hanging onto a rotor blade of a helicopter had me in stitches.

Jessica Biel is on board as Faceman’s eternal love interest Charisa Sosa, and she makes for a convincing badass female soldier here. It’s in some ways the same kind of role she played in “Blade Trinity,” and it is nice to see her doing it again in an infinitely better movie.

For those of you wondering if the show’s famous theme song is at all featured, it is. While some say it is not in this movie enough, they should be happy it was included. The score was composed by Alan Silvestri, famous for writing the music for such classic movies like “Back to The Future” and “The Abyss.” Listening to his work here, it is great he still has it in him to create such rousing action scores to keep our adrenaline up and running.

“The A-Team” also proves what I have been saying about how the US military is treated in movies today; they are not anti-troop in the slightest, they are anti-mercenary. Whether it is “Rambo” or “The Hurt Locker” or “Green Zone” we are dealing with, troops are shown to be a dedicated bunch to their country. The main villains are mercenaries who don’t even try to hide the fact they make more in one day than an American soldier makes in a year. Now tell me, who do you think is more patriotic?

You could complain about how absurd this movie version of “The A-Team” is, but Carnahan plays on what made the show so appealing back in the 1980s, and he pays homage to it without making a simple carbon copy of what many of us grew up on. Every once in a while, we need a movie that is brainless fun and does not require us to overthink everything going on. “The A-Team” succeeds on this front, and I enjoyed it much more than I thought it would.

Oh, by the way, be sure to stay through the end credits. You’ll see why. Like the average Marvel movie, it has some surprises up its sleeve.

Like Eddie Pence of “The Ralph Report,” I very much appreciated this cinematic adaptation of this 1980s television classic. What a shame it is that this movie never got a sequel.

* * * ½ out of * * * *

‘The Grey’ Has Liam Neeson Battling More Than Wolves

Posted on September 29, 2017 by The Ultimate Rabbit

I was stunned at just how powerful “The Grey” was. Not that I was expecting it to be bad, but I was unprepared for how deep it was on an emotional level. On the surface, it looks like your average action movie crossed with an animal attack movie as the antagonists being a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. But as “The Grey” goes on, it becomes less about the wolves and more about man’s inner struggle. The wolves are really just serve as a metaphor for the beast inside of us which threatens to tear us apart.

Liam Neeson stars as John Ottway, a man who works at an oil drilling platform out in Alaska. John, however, is not an oil worker, but instead a hunter who shoots the wolves which threaten the workers. He also keeps having visions of his wife, Ana, (Anne Openshaw) and of them cuddling in bed together, and it is not clear whether she died or if she left him before he came out to one of the coldest places on Earth. What we do know is John is pretty despondent about his current situation, and he’s not sure if he wants to go on living.

All of this contemplation comes to a sudden halt when the plane he and the workers are traveling back home on suffers a serious malfunction and crashes in the most frigid and coldest place in all of Alaska. Director Joe Carnahan directs this crash sequence for maximum effect, and he keeps you inside the plane at all times which makes it all the more terrifying to watch. Robert Zemeckis’ “Flight” may have contained the most harrowing plane crash of any 2012 movie, but the one in “The Grey” is just as unnerving to witness.

John and the survivors gather supplies and make a fire in the hopes they will be rescued, but they are soon met by a foe deadlier than the subzero temperatures: wolves. They come at the men in packs and rip them apart mercilessly, and those left over are forced to escape the crash site and make their way towards the trees in the hopes of losing the wolves and making it back to civilization in one piece. It doesn’t take long to see how John being with them is a good thing as he knows how wolves think and act, and he understands that these animals feed off of our fear of them. John informs the men it doesn’t matter if they have harmed the wolves or not because they are in their territory and not the least bit welcome in it.

Carnahan, ever since his directorial debut with “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane,” has been a kick ass director who fills his films with an energy both kinetic and rough. His movies are never filled with pretty boys and girls, but with working class people who have been through a rough and tumble life which has given them only so much comfort. As a result, these characters feel relatable and are inhabited by a strong group of actors who are not afraid to look less than glamorous as them.

Along with his director of photography Masanobu Takayanagi, Carnahan captures the brutally cold landscape of Alaska in a way which makes you want to wear layers of clothing and a parka even if you’re watching “The Grey” from the comfort of your own home. It should also be noted that the snowstorms seen here are not CGI creations, and the cast and crew did in fact shoot this movie out in British Columbia where the temperatures got as low as -40 degrees Celsius. Give them all points for sheer bravery!

Now I know a lot of animal lovers out there who are boycotting “The Grey” for all it’s worth due to its presentation of wolves being these ferociously evil monsters, but I doubt this movie is meant to be an accurate depiction of these animals. It’s not like you’re going into it expecting a National Geographic special, but if you are, why? The wolves and how they tear away at human flesh is clearly exaggerated for effect, and they are presented as bloodthirsty killers which I doubt they are in real life.

But the more you get into “The Grey,” the more you realize it’s really not about man versus wolf but about man’s conflict with himself. As these men make their way through unforgiving blizzards and up to a higher elevation which their bodies are not prepared to handle, they discuss the existence of God and if there was ever one to begin with. This movie is not out to offer any definitive answer to this question, but examination of this issue creates a moral conundrum for the characters which is fascinating to watch, and it brings the movie to a whole other level I didn’t expect it to go to.

It also helps that Carnahan has a great supporting cast of actors like James Badge Dale, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts, Nonso Anozie and Joe Anderson to work with as they all do a great job of bringing these characters to life. I especially have to single out Grillo who plays the arrogant hard ass Diaz. This character is the kind you want to see die painfully in a movie like this as he is like Hudson from “Aliens,” and excruciating pain in the ass, but Grillo makes Diaz into much more than that, and his character’s fate is a very sobering one to witness.

You have got to hand it to Neeson though as he brings a tremendous gravity to each film he’s in. Neeson has always been a riveting actor to watch, and he sells you on the knowledge his character has of wolves in a way few others can. If it were anyone else in this role, things might not seem as believable, but Neeson is the kind of guy who looks like he’s been through a lot in life (and he has), and you need an actor like him in a movie like this.

“The Grey” also has an emotionally powerful film score by Marc Streitenfeld. He has been Ridley Scott’s composer of choice for several of his movies, and yet he somehow got some time off to compose something for Carnahan. I even detected strands of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 in Streitenfeld’s score, and that is a piece of music as beautiful as it is sad (Peter Weir used it to great effect in “Fearless”). I had no idea Streitenfeld was going to come up with music this moving, and this says a lot about his talent.

“The Grey” doesn’t reinvent cinema as we know it, but it does take familiar elements and creates a movie going experience I didn’t expect to be taken on. While many may be bummed out by the film’s ending, I feel it is a perfect one for a movie like this. This is not a story which requires a heavy-duty action sequence to conclude it, and it’s really better for it as a result (be sure to stay through the end credits though). Those involved in its making were not out to give us a simple action movie, but instead a character driven one, and we should give them our thanks for taking it in this particular direction. Any other filmmaker would have been content to give us something which seemed like business as usual, but Carnahan was not out to do that. Thanks goodness for that.

*** * * ½ out of * * * ***