Original nutters ... The A-Team
"In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire ... the A-Team."
These were the immortal words which opened every episode of The A-Team, one of those shows from the 80s which was so damn good because of its steadfast refusal to contemplate its own preposterousness. The back story for Colonel Hannibal Smith and his modern day merry men was like something out of a Boys Own comic. If this motley crew of Vietnam vets had existed in real life its members would have been the last people you would hire to solve your problems. At least two of the four A-Teamers, Murdock and BA Baracus, were clearly suffering from some sort of battle-related mental illness, while the other two, Faceman and Hannibal, were not far behind in their penchant for using heavy weaponry to blow the bejesus out of the bad guys at every available opportunity (with scant regard for the fact that they were plying their "trade" in southern California, not south east Asia).
So the news that Boyz 'N the Hood director John Singleton is to make a big screen version of the series which made a star of Mr T has left me with slightly mixed feelings. The problem is that Singleton reportedly wants to make a more serious version of the story, updated to the modern era, and featuring bad guys that actually die when you shoot them.
Surely this is missing the point somewhat.
The great thing about The A-Team was its sheer silliness. No one's going to see a big screen version that removes all the kitschy dumbness that made the original so cool in the first place. I can see a spoofy Starsky and Hutch style movie working, but even that would have to be brilliantly handled by a film-maker with excellent comic touch. Singleton isn't exactly known for his chucklepower; in fact nearly everything he's laid his hands on has been more than a little po-faced, and often straight-up bad. His remake of Shaft was an abomination, while 2005's Four Brothers was described by Peter Bradshaw as a "dire, cynically packaged homies-in-the-hood fantasy".
The other problem is casting. Who the hell is going to play BA? Mr T, like, owns that role. They should just get him back: If Sly Stallone can appear in a new Rocky movie at the age of 60, then why not T, who's only 55? But Singleton prefers to cast hip hop stars in his movies, so expect 50 Cent or Andre 3000 to be sporting a fetching Mohican on a screen near you soon.
Who would you cast as BA, Faceman, Hannibal and Murdock? And what type of A-Team movie would you like to see, if you'd like to see it at all... Am I wrong in thinking this is going to be a total car crash?
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