The A-Team Review

“I love it when a plan comes together”

The legendary line that was imprinted on a generation and that surely will have been resonating with The A-Team producers in pre-emptive congratulations for their imminent money making mission.

This TV spin off however, has an AWOL plot and characters that are MIA.

Assembled in Mexico, the A-team consists of cigar weilding Col. John “Hannibal” Smith (Liam Neeson), cock-sure con man Templeton “Face” Peck (Bradley Cooper), mentally deranged pilot H.M. “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock (Sharlto Copley) and fool pitying, scalp collector B.A. (for Bad Attitude) Baracus (Quinto “Rampage” Jackson).

“Eight years and 80 successful missions later,” the A-team find themselves situated in the midst of the American invasion of Iraq.

General Morrison (Gerald McRaney) wants the dream team to liberate a billion dollars in counterfeit U.S. currency from the enemy in Baghdad, along with the printing plates used to manufacture it.

But the ‘enemy’ isn’t as clear as it should be.

Rivalries between the ranks make a seemingly straightforward betrayal, explosives, funny one-liners and revenge plot, turn into a Bond style story rife with incoherent double crossing.

Slick CIA agent, ‘Lynch’ (Patrick Wilson) and DCI Captain Charlisa Sosa (Jessica Biel), who’s also a former fancy of the aptly dubbed ‘Face’ make for amusing rivalry and untrustworthy allies for our heroes.

Throw in another mysterious private military contractor in constant pursuit and more explosives than an arms dealer and you can see why this could be a mission for the audience’s attention.

With many crazily concocted plans including the teams individual escapes from prison, which are both inventive and very funny and tanks falling from the sky only to be fired to a safe-ish landing.

The film has kept the cheesy and over the top spirit that captured TV viewers’ hearts way backs when, the only difference being that this is a whole series worth of OTT packed into 2 hours of screen time.

“Overkill is underrated” Hannibal quibbles as he lights up another Cuban, but perhaps the writers shouldn’t be taking advice from the cigar chomping militant quite so literally.

Sometimes “less is more”, remember that for the inevitable sequel boys.