A review by Azzam Abdur-Rahman
I get warm feelings thinking about this film. It came out right as I was graduating high school. It was directed by a guy I looked up to and he found a way to take a strange show from the 80’s and breathe new life into it while being respectful to the source material. It seems like a lot of people forget that this movie happened but I didn’t and that’s why this wonderful series exists. The A-Team deserves a revisit from the populous at large because it was years ahead of its time. I say this because 22 Jump Street pretty much stole its plot and just added Ice Cube. I’lll get there but let’s talk about the business of this movie!
The A-Team was Carnahan’s follow up to Smoking Ace’s, the best Tarantino movie he never made. What Carnahan managed to do was assemble an insanely talented cast and one that is filled with A-list actors or soon to be ones. This movie makes $57.3 million on a $17 million dollar budget proving he can move up to the big leagues after leaving Mission Impossible 3’s first iteration. You see the story of The A-Team is also a story of Carnahan’s strange career. This man has left so many incredible projects before they materialized. The what-if’s of big properties of his career is mind blowing. Brooks brought up Narc, which got him hired on MI:3 which he left, he developed Bad Boys 3, a Daredevil movie set in the crime ridden 1970’s, an adaptation of White Jazz, an adaptation of the Mark Millar property Nemesis and on and on and on! The A-Team is the only time Hollywood at large gave him access to a property he did not create and the film make it to our screens to consume. It should be lauded for this fact alone as Carnahan is brought up often as a guy who has never gotten a fair shake.
The film itself is kind of mind-blowing when you look at the main four as a cast. It is hard enough to cast someone to play Hannibal. The character is iconic in his gruff attitude, wry humor and commanding voice. Carnahan cast’s Liam Neeson who, again I feel people don’t understand how strange it is, became an action star so late in his career. Taken was two years earlier and an absolute smash hit. We have a gruff director working with a man who is equally street wise and Shakesperian in his style. Face on the other hand was easier, get a good looking guy on an amazing career trajectory. There was only one option at the time, Bradley Cooper. It’s hard to imagine this but before The Hangover guy was a company player. He was Jim Carrey’s best friend in Yes Man, the shitty boyfriend in Wedding Crashers, and another friend in Failure to Launch. Cooper was doing the thankless work. Then it changes and now he is a name who can open a weekend and he is looking to take his career from Rom-Coms and Comedies into the spot every man with a great chin is looking to go. Action movies. Now every casting choice after is bad or a stroke of straight genius depending on who you ask. B.A was the guy most people were ready to make happen before cameras even rolled. For the longest time Ice Cube held this roll down with Singleton to direct. Pretty much if you were a black man in Hollywood you got offered this roll but most didn’t look as imposing as Mr. T did. You see T was the character and the character was Mr. T. You couldn’t just slap Terry Crews in there. You needed a man who was both physically imposing and was his own brand. This movie comes together at the height of the UFC becoming popular. In either a moment of cross branding or a moment of just thinking, this guy is massive, they cast Rampage. A UFC fighter known for his wild personality and even wilder fights. 3 men down and one man to go and what anyone following his production at the time knew would make or break the film. You see Howling Mad Dog Murdock was a crazy character in the 80’s but by 2010 he was just a quirky guy who said strange things. Jackass had happened and it was hard to imagine making this character work. They tried actors like Woody Harrelson and Ryan Reynolds on but neither worked the way they needed. Then a man who spent his whole childhood obsessing over this show appeared. Sharlto Copley. It was the cherry on top of a year that saw his first major film role in District 9 become a massive financial and awards player. This man went to production playing his favorite character.
With the cast assembled and a villian played but the incredibly underrated Patrick Wilson, who still hasn’t gotten his due, went into production and dropped in the summer of 2010. The film to its credit would set the standard for how to adapt this kind of properties to the point that 21 Jump Street wholesale ripped of the plotting structure. Introduce the characters in a way that is humorous but organic, then show how the characters ended up in the situation that the TV show just started them in, finally create a villain whose identity is unclear bringing the procedural whodunit element in without forcing it and bam hit them with a twist before the ending on a solid action beat. The A-Team lays all this ground work out leveling humor throughout a movie about paramilitary traitors and international terrorism. Now with a cast and a well produced film in the summer of 2010 it should have exploded. This is before Marvel owned the collective consciousness. Iron Man 2 had dropped earlier that summer. The other comic adaptations that summer were Kick-Ass, The Losers (another movie no one remembers with an insane cast), Jonah Hex, (a very bad movie best forgotten), and that's about it. It's only competition that weekend is a remake of The Karate Kid which is a movie no one remembers or frankly speaks fondly of. The A-Team doesn’t bomb but it also doesn’t soar. It makes its money back but does not become a three film franchise. We never get to see these actors work together again and for all intent and purpose Carnahan goes back to being a bridesmaid, never the bride. He still makes movies, some that are very good in their own right and one that is a masterpiece, but never again does a studio let him make a big budget property again. He always ends up leaving or being let go of.
It’s a shame because The A-Team is a legitimately fun movie that shows why people gave this guy many so many opportunities. The film was filled with youthful energy and excitement in every frame. Conversations feel weaponized in every sense being serious and filled with humor all at once. The cast is top-tier and Carnahan managed to write a script that was topical with being a point of contention. It’s odd to think about this now. Film is changing and I doubt Caranhan will ever get another time in the sun. If you have HBO go give The A-Team a watch.
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