Irish director's 'A-Team' set to be summer blockbuster

Come on, you remember how it goes -- a group of U.S. Special Forces Vietnam war veterans get framed for a crime they didn’t commit. Soon they become fugitive crime fighters, out to rid America of the bad guys one at a time, and as inventively as possible.
It was camper than a row of tents, The A-Team TV series of the 1980s; Boy George even starred in one episode. But that was then.

In 2010 all that campiness has been rooted out and replaced with (some might say) an even campier macho swagger. In the new A-Team movie, which opens nationwide this Friday, real men are never more than a foot away from a loaded gun, or more than a moment away from firing it.

If that’s your idea of fun -- and this movie is banking that it is -- then you’re going to love the new upgrade.

What’s amazing is how many genuinely accomplished actors are on board the second time around. First of all there’s the surprise of seeing Northern Ireland’s own Liam Neeson, whose many credits include the Oscar winning Schindler’s List and the recent box-office hit Taken, portraying Hannibal Smith, the master planner of missions, requiring split-second timing, unusual skills and a team of incredibly proficient soldiers.

Neeson’s joined onscreen by the hunky Bradley Cooper, who achieved stardom last year in the smash comedy The Hangover. Cooper plays Templeton “Face” Peck, who can procure anything for the team’s unorthodox and daring missions.

South Africa’s distinguished actor Sharlto Copley, who starred in last year’s hit District 9, plays “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock, a gifted pilot and a certified lunatic. That leaves Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who mostly just glowers in the role of B.A. Baracus, the team’s short-tempered driver who was so memorably played by Mr. T in the series.

So the gang’s all here, but whose idea was it to put them together for a new adventure? Well, that would be the movie’s Irish American director Joe Carnahan.

After his 2007 film movie Smokin’ Aces, he was looking for a project on this scale -- but maybe not this particular project, at least not at first.

“When I was a kid I was actually a huge Miami Vice fan.  I wasn’t a big A-Team fan, although I did like the sort of cult of the show,” Carnahan tells the Irish Voice. “It was so pervasive, no matter where you went you saw it and Mr. T. So we wanted to be respectful of the series for the generation of fans who grew up with it, but we also wanted to take The A-Team into the 21st century.”

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Nster.com