I’m trying to discern how ashamed I should be for enjoying the heck out of this movie.  It’s a ballistic action picture for audiences with limited attention spans, and boy oh boy, does it ever zip along.  “The A-Team” arrives at just the right time to liven things up in a summer full of fallen princes and ugly sex-hounds.  To say Joe Carnahan has made the year’s ‘explosiest’ film would be an understatement.

I’ll be honest: I’ve never seen a single episode of “The A-Team.”  Perhaps it’s better that way, but honestly I don’t know.  Critics seem split down the middle on this movie, and I’m not sure what the core fan base would have to say.  Mr. T claims the film is too violent and full of sex.  Well there is about as much sex in this movie as there is in a family film, but the violence certainly has a high-amperage, even if it’s all cartoonish.  I’m guessing ol’ T-Man still holds a grudge for his absence in the flick.  But let’s talk about what Carnahan has put together.
After a frenetic final bout in “Smokin’ Aces,” Director Joe Carnahan has pulled out all the stops in making “The A-Team” a reality-defying movie full of sensational stunts and shootouts.  His story begins early on and glimpses the Alpha Team’s origins.  Col. Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson) must rescue one of his fellow team members, Face Peck (Bradley Cooper) with the help of another former Army Ranger, BA Baracus (Quinton Jackson).  Following the success of the rescue, the three team up with a lunatic pilot named Murdock (Sharlto Copley) and they become the ultimate mercenary team “specializing in the ridiculous.”  In a mission gone wrong , another military unit has managed to steal currency engraving plates and frame the A-Team for counterfeiting and murder.  All four members face criminal incarceration for sixth months until they are reunited by a federal agent (Patrick Wilson) who breaks them out of prison.  Hannibal assumes command and forms a plan to clear the names of himself and his team members, as well as retrieve the stolen plates.  Mayhem inevitably ensues.

In some of the most outrageous action sequences, chief among them an armored tank that flies, anything goes.  “The A-Team” delivers some knockout energy boosted by the infectious fun of the stars.  The camaradere among the stars holds the film’s greatest strength, as the firepower and explosions would be meaningless.  Don’t get me wrong–in some ways they are meaningless, but with the actors having a good time, the goofball excitement becomes increasingly infectious.  Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley especially deliver big laughs.  Some of the action is choppy and Quinton Jackson may mumble a bit much at times, but overall I didn’t find much to complain about, being that this is a film where checking one’s brain at the door is required.  The movie moves along incredibly fast, I didn’t even have time to check my watch, and I was entertained throughout.  Seriously, there is not a dull moment to be found here. Turn off your brain and grab some popcorn.

Action Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Joe Carnahan, liam neeson, Patrick Wilson, Quinton Jackson, Sharlto Copley

Here is the entire premise of Taken (which, incidentally, is not unlike the premise of a Mario Bros. video game):

Girl gets kidnapped.  Dad goes to save her.

While some movies would take that simple yet classic idea and slap on a host of possibly-gratuitous extras like a wisecracking sidekick, romantic subplots, globetrotting, backstabbing, and twist endings, Taken does one thing and one thing only, and that is to fulfill the expectations of its thesis.  Surprisingly enough, it not only works but works very well, thanks in large part to an incredible performance from Liam Neeson as the father, Bryan Mills, who is desperate to save his daughter.

Penned by the brilliant Luc Besson (whose writing credits include Leon, The Fifth Element, and Taken’s spiritual predecessor The Transporter), the script succeeds marvelously because it provides such a unique and pure motive for Mills.  His daughter Kim, played by the capable but unremarkable Maggie Grace, is kidnapped not by drug kingpins for ransom, or by an old comrade bent on revenge for a past wrongdoing, or by a shadowy corporation who is using her as leverage in order for him to do their bidding.  Instead she is taken by a group of human traffickers who are in the business of selling young girls as prostitutes to the highest bidder.  This not only lends a great deal of weight and seriousness to the subject matter of the movie, but provides an emotional engagement for the viewers unlike most movies of this type.

Bowser and Princess Peach? Almost...

In some ways, watching Taken is like watching an extended episode of 24.  Mills, a highly trained government agent who has retired in order to live closer to his estranged family, makes Jack Bauer look like Rainbow Brite.  He punches, kicks, jumps, shoots, and drives his way through so many people on the way to rescuing Kim that the body count would provably rival that of Commando.  Mills is ruthless, like his CTU-based counterpart, but the consequences of failure are greater, from an emotional standpoint, than the apocalyptic scenarios portrayed so often in 24.  However, Mills and Bauer (along with hundreds of action stars before them) obviously went to the same bullet-avoidance training seminar, as dozens of pistol- and uzi-wielding foot soldiers are capable of inflicting anything more than a papercut, even at point blank range.

The cinematography, like most action movies since the early part of the decade, follows the Jason Bourne playbook to a tee:  cuts are fast and frantic, action is dimly-lit, and fistfights are more editing than choreography.  This style works well here, and doesn’t have the nauseating side effects of some other action movies.  An interrogation scene is thrown in almost as an afterthought, but mercifully is nowhere near as wince-inducing the one in Casino Royale.

Who would win in a fight between Chuck Norris and Bryan Mills? Honestly, it would be close.

All the comparisons to other movies and TV shows are necessary when reviewing Taken because, although it is a very good film with a solid and emotionally engaging plot, a hero with whom we can empathize, and a enough action to satisfy any Die Hard or Lethal Weapon fan, it brings nothing new to the table and ends up being something of a “greatest hits” collection of the best its predecessors in the genre have to offer.  Perhaps the biggest surprise it does have, though, is Liam Neeson.  He has always been one of my favorite actors–a classy person who picks great roles, like Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts–but I have never seen him quite like this.  He is entirely convincing as Mills, and pulls off the high-speed action this film requires without missing a beat.  While others could have played the role, Neeson became the role, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Action Action, bourne identity, kidnapping, liam neeson

With America’s eyes turning toward the battle for Rifqa Bary in Florida, it seemed fitting to pull this one out of the vault. Americans are famously clueless about history, but especially so when it comes to the history of Islam and Christianity. When I was in Bar Exam preparation, the lecturer, who was your typical American WASP, aparently felt the need to vent concerning the Crusades. He said the kings and knights went off to “teach Christianity to the heathens” in the Middle East, and how they completely destroyed the “Islamic Culture” there “that had existed for thousands of years.” He then went back to legal matters, but many listening had no doubt been entrenched more deeply in very popular and very dangerous misconceptions. Circumstances prevented me from addressing him directly, but I would have liked to point out that, at the time of the Crusades, “Islamic culture” had existed for about 400 years (Christianity, for the record, had been around for about 1000), that the Crusades had nothing to do with converting anyone or teaching anyone anything, but were about reclaiming territory and securing safe pilgrimages for the already faithful, and that they had hardly been unprovoked.

Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005) is one of many films about the Crusades. It does succumb to many of the same misconceptions of past films, but  represents an improvement. One review commented that the Muslims in the film were put in a surprisingly positive light. The surprise for me was that the Christians were not portrayed as completely barbaric, as tends to be the habit of Hollywood. For instance, the Kevin Coster version of Robin Hood (1992) introduced a new character in Hazeem, a Muslim who follows Robin to England from Jerusalem (Morgan Freeman). Through Hazeem, Muslims get undeserved credit for all kinds of advances in science, including gunpowder, which came from ancient China, telescopes, which were invented in Denmark in the 17^th Century, and Cesarean section. Hazeem tends to be juxtaposed against Friar Tuck, a drunken, bumbling (albeit lovable) figure of Christianity. Worst of all, at one point, Robin Makes a speech, during which he declares “One man, fighting for his home, is more powerful than 10 hired soldiers!” He then looks over at Hazeem and says “The Crusades taught me that.”

And so it goes. Throughout history, from the class room to the silver screen, Christianity is portrayed as having spread out violently from Europe, destroying the peaceful, environmentally sound cultures in its path. Will the real story ever be told?

Balian (Bloom) at the Battle of Kerak, courtessy of Wikipedia.

Kingdom of Heaven is a definite improvement. Most of the characters we get to know are on the Christian side. Most of them are admirable. The biggest surprise was that the movie portrayed Muslims, Christians and Jews as living peacefully side by side for much of the story. One knight tells the lead, Balian of Ibelin (Orlando Bloom) that his father, Grodfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson) kept Jerusalem as a place of prayer for all faiths, just as the Muslims did before them. (At least now both sides are equally misrepresented.) The villains of the story are Guy de Lusigan (Marton Csokas) and Reynald (Brendan Gleeson), two French knights who want to provoke a war with Syria. (Those who care to check out the DVD extras will notice the real Guy, at least, wasn’t so bad) They succeed about two thirds of the way through, which leads up to the climactic battle (which, I might add, is a great piece of film-making). We don’t see enough scenes on the Muslim side to really like or dislike them. We do see a brief shot of Saladin crying over the bodies of men slain in battle. We see a lot of shots of both sides shouting “God wills it!” as they move into battle.

In the book “Unveiling Islam,” Ergun Caner, a former Muslim,  comments that this cry (Dues Volt! in Latin) was only adopted in Europe after centuries of raids and colonization by the Arabs.  Other features of Islam seem to have rubbed off on Christians about this time. For instance, the teaching in Islam that one who dies in jihad automatically goes to paradise (Hadith 4:73, 9:93:555) seems to have been adopted by Pope Leo IV, when he promised forgiveness of sins to any who fought the Muslims.

Saladin attacks Jerusalem in a great battle scene.

The heroes of Kingdom tend to be those who acknowledge God’s authority but insist on using cool-headed reason to end conflicts. There is a priest in Christian Jerusalem who comments “thanks to religion, I’ve seen the lunacy of madmen in every denomination be called the will of God. The kingdom God desires is here (pokes Balian in the head) and here (pokes him in the heart).” This evenhanded film is probably characteristic of the post 9/11 era where Americans want to believe all religions are the same. Today, the media can’t seem to fathom that Muslim parents, who’ve cared for their daughter for 17 years, might kill her for apostacy. As she repeatedly told an interviewer, “you guys don’t understand!”

There are a number of battles in history that I have often wished someone would make a movie out of – battles that represent some of Christian Europe’s victories over the Jihad. For instance, the Battle of Tours (A.D. 732), where the French stopped a Muslim army that had pillaged its way across northern Africa and Spain, thus saving western civilization. Or the naval Battle of Lepanto (1571) that broke the Turks’ stranglehold on the Mediterranean and liberated thousands of slaves. Or the valiant defense of Constantinople, which resisted the Ottoman empire (which terrorized the world for about 500 years) for centuries. And then, of course, there were a series of battles late in WWI that marked the final destruction of the Ottomans and the liberation of the Serbs (who are now vilified as oppressors of Muslims). Today, we’re watching the story of a young potential martyr unfold from our livingrooms.

On one hand it seems like a pipe dream to hope that these stories will ever get the remembrance and celebration they deserve in the present climate. Americans can’t seem to fathom a time when western culture was in danger of being overrun.  Still, Kingdom of Heaven might be a step in the right direction. Maybe the next Ridley Scott will read this column. Time will tell.

Action, Documentary, War 5.0 Stars, brendan gleeson, castles, Crusades, csokas, history, knights, liam neeson, orlando bloom, Ridley Scott, Rifqa Bary