What Do The Critics Say?

"It’s action from the get-go as character introductions take little time and background stories aren’t immediately important. That is an invigorating change after the endless ‘origin’ stories audiences are now subjected to, regardless of their strengths or weaknesses. They say there’s no better; The A-Team succeeds in blasting onto the big screen with big attitude." Anders Wotzke CUTPRINTREVIEW "If you walk into this movie expecting anything more than a chunk of deep-fried cheese poured over steaming links of sausage, you'll suffer a bad case of cinematic indigestion." Jay Stone CANWEST NEWS SERVICE "The A-Team does not have a single dull moment in between the unbelievably awesome action sequences and the perfect chemistry. Sharlto Copley steals the entire flick." Kevin McCarthy BDK REVIEWS "Excuse me, I need to sit down, catch my breath and extinguish my singed eyebrows." Colin Covert MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE "Both in name and spirit, The A-Team drags the Eighties into the 21st century, and you might be surprised to find (if only briefly) that you've missed them just a little." Elizabeth Weitzman NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"Funner and more exhilirating than Mr T throwing a chocolate bar at a fool’s head. If you have a problem and no one else can help, you must see The A-Team. Action excellence guaranteed." Ben McEachen EMPIRE MAGAZINE "Brisk, brash, whiplash-inducing. And cracking jokes all along the way.The more this quartet mugs for the camera, the more fun this whole macho-fantasia experiment becomes." Steven Snyder TECHLAND "Go in with an open (or rather an empty) mind and enjoy the fantastic action and awesome explosions." Kevin Carr 7M PICTURES "The A-Team film stands on its own, and as it stands it's one of the best action films of the year." Rebecca Murray ABOUT.COM "A mindlessly entertaining blockbuster brimming with thrilling action sequences and delightfully zany characters that never take themselves too seriously." Avi Offer NEW YORK MOVIE GURU "Pretty much everything you c ould have hoped for in an A-Team movie, this big-screen update of the '80s TV show hits all its marks." Luke Y. Thompson E! ONLINE

The Inside Story "The A-Team" was one of the most popular and successful television series to come out of the 1980s. Created by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo, the series focused on the exploits of a team of four Vietnam veterans who, sentenced by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit, head underground and become soldiers of fortune. Led by a cigar-chomping Col John 'Hannibal' Smith, played by George Peppard, the team acted on the side of good, while trying to clear their names. The series garnered a large and enthusiastic following, running for 97 episodes brtween 1983 and 1987. "The A-Team" series went well beyond being a hit TV series. "It was a phenomenon," says series creator Stephen J Cannell ("21 Jump Street"), who is one of the film’s producers. "There were never leading men like those on "The A-Team" on television before. At its core, the series had a simple premise: four guys who are wrongly convicted of a crime decide to go out and help people who can’t help themselves. The need to fight back against injustice is a great subject for a story and audiences responded to the show with fervor. Generations of kids grew up on the series and then a new generation got a chance to see it in re-runs and got the same kick out of it." Acclaimed filmmaker Joe Carnahan ("Narc" & "Smokin' Aces"), one of the millions who grew up with the show, knew it had a devoted following and recognized the challenges in bringing "The A-Team" to the big screen. "This was a coveted property and re-imagining a show I remembered as a kid was tough to turn down," says Carnahan. "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 twenty-first century." Although studio executives and industry watchers agreed the series’ premise provided great foundation for a major motion picture, the film project gestated for almost a decade with the script going through a number of iterations as writers struggled to avoid the show’s campy nature. "We’d been trying to get the script right for a long time," producer and former Twentieth Century Fox senior production executive Alex Young ("Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps") recalls. "If you want a modern movie you have to make it feel bigger and more muscular and make the action sequences compete with the best of today’s blockbusters. Joe Carnahan has a very modern and muscular sensibility and his approach to the material was grittier and more real-world, than the series." When Carnahan came on board, he and writing partner Brian Bloom (who played Agent Baker in "Smokin' Aces") redrafted the action to take place during the impending troop withdrawal from the Middle East. They drew on the camaraderie and humor at the heart of the series, but ramped up the action, drama, adventure and intensity. "The goal with "The A-Team" was to make a compelling, inventive action movie, but to keep it as emotional, real and accessible as possible. There’s no point in doing this kind of action and adventure if you’re not going to elevate it," Carnahan said. Both he and Bloom felt the material needed to reflect contemporary times and appeal to modern audiences. "The intention was not to abandon the television show and the characters that everyone loved so much, but to evolve and contemporize the story," says Bloom. "People are a lot savvier than they were twenty five years ago when the show debuted," Carnahan offered. "If you tried to put the series out today you wouldn’t get away with what they got away with then. At the time, the campy aspect of the show was hugely entertaining, but today’s audiences are a lot more sophisticated." "What I always loved about the show wasn’t so much the situational stuff but the camaraderie and the affection these guys had for one another," says Carnahan. "It wasn’t the wild stories or plot twists that made the show a success, it was the fact that you believed that these four guys genuinely liked one another and really had each other’s backs." "What you came to learn was that these guys desperately needed each other to continue, not only emotionally, but technically and tactically," Bloom emphasizes. "They were definitely a team." "People really loved these characters," says producer Jules Daly ("Shanghai Noon" & "Do Geese See God?"). "Sure they were charismatic and funny, but there was also a great sense of affection and connection between the four guys, which the audiences really responded to. We all knew the most critical thing in terms of the film working would be the chemistry between the four leads." As the project gained momentum and the script was fine-tuned, the filmmakers turned their attention to casting the 'Team'. "There was a lot of debate about where to go with the casting," recalls Young. "And it was tricky, because when we were getting into it we realized there were a lot of different ways to go; you could look at every male actor over a certain age and make a legitimate case for them being in the film. The one thing we knew was that we wanted the four actors playing the A-Team to feel fresh. We didn’t want to just cast the usual suspects and then surround them with a bunch of supporting actors." When contemplating casting choices for the pivotal role of Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith, the filmmakers felt it was important to find an actor who exuded power, confidence and authority: along with a razor-sharp sense of humor. As the leader of "The A-Team", Hannibal is a master tactician who is always a step ahead of the enemy. He keeps his team out of trouble, but his unconventional methods rarely lead to a predictable conclusion. No matter the scheme, he loves it when a plan comes together. Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup winner Liam Neeson ("Michael Collins") is best known for his dramatic turns portraying characters with great physical presence and humanity, but it was his acclaimed action-hero performance in the global hit "Taken" that led the filmmakers to see Hannibal was a natural fit for the actor. "Liam is sexy, fit, and strong and brings gravitas to the role. I think when Liam came on board, he set the tone as to where the project was going," Daly (who produced Chris Noth a.k.a 'Mr Big' in 2004's "Tooth Fairy") notes. "No matter what the role, Liam shows different facets of himself and the characters he plays, and he does it with integrity, passion and honesty," says Carnahan."Liam brings the right combination of intelligence and strength to the character. It’s easy to believe that his men love, trust and respect him." So what was it that attracted the man who said in a recent interview: "I was never a fan of the series to be honest." Neeson says he "was really taken with the relationship between the four guys that Joe and Brian managed to keep at the heart of the script. Clearly a lot of thought had gone into the story and characters, and the script had a wonderful camaraderie between the guys. Hannibal is a believable hero. He’s moral, has a strong sense of ethics and loves his country and his men." And how did he, as a non-smoker, handle the cigar scenes? "As an ex-smoker, I felt conflicted about the cigar. But I understood why the writers kept the conceit; it does add a contentment to Hannibal’s character when a plan is going well and he pulls out a cigar and lights it." He adds a warning, "but obviously we don’t want kids to emulate this." Lt. Templeton 'Face' Peck is the A-Team’s con man and go-to guy when it comes to getting what they need when they need it. He uses his good looks and charm to scam and hustle his way to the prize and to live the good life. To bring the role of 'Face' to the screen, the filmmakers tapped Bradley Cooper, whose starring role in the comedy smash "The Hangover" cemented his reputation as one of the hottest talents of his generation. "When Bradley expressed an interest in playing 'Face', I didn’t see the point in looking any further," Carnahan recalls. "You know when you hit it off with someone right away and you think, okay, this is probably going to be one of my lifelong friends. That was the vibe I got with Cooper immediately." It wasn’t a difficult decision for Cooper to tackle the role. "It’s always been a dream to do a big action movie. I love sports and I love pretending to fight. And to take on such an iconic show, one that I grew up on, and to do so besides the likes of Liam Neeson, is just amazing." Cooper (who played Will Tippin in fourty six episodes of "Alias" between 2001 and 2006) particularly enjoyed that the role gave him the opportunity to be a part of some physically demanding action scenes. To make sure he was up to the task, Cooper adopted a strict diet and rigorous training regimen; which included doing 'The Grouse Grind' a grueling speed-hike up two thousand eight hundred feet of Vancouver's Grouse Mountain. "I keep pretty fit, but I had to up the ante for this film. Action scenes are tricky and take an enormous amount of energy. You have to pay close attention to so many things; your body position, how you move when you fight, and how you move when you handle a gun. 'Face' is a soldier; he doesn’t mind getting a little rough so I had to be ready for the physical stuff." Daly first took notice of Sharlto Copley when she saw an early cut of "District 9". "I loved what Sharlto did with the Wikus character; he had a quirkiness I thought would be perfect for the role of Murdock," Daly recalls. The filmmakers asked Copley, who was on a promotional tour for "District 9", to put a few scenes of how he thought Murdock would act on tape and to send it to them. The rest, as they say, is history. The idea of playing one of his childhood heroes on the big screen appealed to Copley. "The A-Team was my favorite show as a kid and Murdock was my favorite character. So to play him was like a dream come true." "His whole attitude was that Murdock is nuts, so Sharlto had to be a bit nuts, too," Carnahan notes. "I think people are going to love what he’s done with the role." Rounding out the quartet is B.A. Baracus, an extraordinarily skilled driver and mechanic who can work on the fly to create highly functional machinery out of ordinary parts. He is also a 'tough as nails' fighter who brings it when it comes to hand to hand combat. He has a short fuse, so do not get him angry. He fears no one and nothing: except for getting on a plane. The role of B.A. Baracus was the hardest to cast because, out of all the original TV characters, B.A. had the most iconic qualities. After an exhaustive search, they cast former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson in the role. "I used to bond with my father watching "The A-Team" as a kid, it was cool; we used to try to build crazy stuff, like the show’s characters did, right in front of our TV," Jackson recalls. "So my take on B.A. is really actually me and my dad put together. Joe told me to 'put my own stank' on it, which is what I did." "I don’t know how we could have done any better," Cannell stated. "Liam, Bradley, Sharlto and Rampage have captured the essence of what people loved about the original characters." What's It All About?

Iraq. Col John 'Hannibal' Smith has been approached by C.I.A. agent Lynch who needs his help to run an undercover operation. He wants Hannibal and his team to recover stolen U.S. Treasurey plates that are being used to print illegal U.S. currency. The group responsible are about to shift the money and the plates out of the Iraq and they must be stopped. It's right up Hannibal and his team alley, but General Morrision, his superior officer, isn't so sure. Reluctantly he agrees to OK the covert operation. After recovering both the plates and a billion dollars of currency, Hannibal and the team arrive back at base only to be double-crossed, courtmartialed, stripped of their rank and imprisoned. Hannibal is thrown a life-line when Lynch turns up at the military prision. He wants those plates back in the U.S.A. and agrees to help Hannibal and his team escape. Now the former Special Forces soldiers are going 'rogue' and are on the run. Utilizing their unique talents they'll try to clear their names by tracking down the real culprits.

The Verdict "It's been a hell of a long wait, but believe me when I tell you, it was worth every minute. "The A-Team" have arrived and it should go absolutely gang-buster when it opens at the box-office. From start to finish this is one heck of a movie experience and one I might add, you should see on the biggest screen possible. The pace is set from the opening scene where Hannibal is south of the border on a rescue mission. From here we move to Iraq where "The A-Team" are conned into and then betrayed over a covert mission. There's a great escape courtesy of the C.I.A and just wait until you see the flying tank segment. And that's only the half of it. "The A-Team" is sure reap plenty of accolades from both cinemagoers and critics alike. It's hard to fault this one! The lead cast members Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton Jackson and, I must say it, the wonderful Sharlto Copley, are the real deal. Ample support comes from Patrick Wilson, Brian Bloom and Jessica Biel. Loaded to the hilt with action, laughs, explosions and SFX, "The A-Team" is worth seeing more than once. And, you must stay till the end of the films credits, because there is an added bonus. Forget sex. Give the city a miss. Head for the burbs and fill those multiplexes. Can hardly wait for a sequel. 5 STARS," The Production Team

Director Writers TV Series Producers Original Music D.O.P. Casting Production Design Art Direction Set Decoration Costume Design

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Joe Carnahan Joe Carnahan/Brian Bloom/Skip Woods "The A-Team" created by Frank Lupo & Stephen J Cannell Stephen J. Cannell/Ridley Scott/Tony Scott Spike Seldin/Iain Smith/Alex Young Alan Silvestri Mauro Fiore Heike Brandstatter/Coreen Mayrs/Mary Tricia Wood Charles Wood Michael Diner Elizabeth Wilcox Betsy Heimann

Who Is Playing Who?

Liam Neeson Bradley Cooper Sharlto Copley Quinton Jackson Jessica Biel Patrick Wilson Brian Bloom Gerald McRaney Omari Hardwick Maury Sterling Yul Vazquez Terry Chen C. Ernst Harth Raj Lal Neil Schell Rafael Pellerin Gardiner Millar Jon Johnson

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Col. John 'Hannibal' Smith Lt. Templeton 'Faceman' Peck Capt. 'Howling Mad' Murdock Sgt. Bosco 'B.A.' Baracus Capt Charisa Sosa Lynch Pike General Morrison Chop Shop J Gammons General Tuco Ravech Gilbert Private Silyman Army Meddac Hospital XO Soccer Kid Officer Honor guard

Run Time 121 minutes Rated TBC [AUST] Copyright ©2010 - 20TH Century Fox Films - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2010 The Movie Pages & impact Internet Services. All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian and International Copyright. Trademark Laws and Intellectual Property Rights apply.