Pity these fools – The A-team flops
Film
THE A-TEAM
Cert: 12A
Rhys Griffiths
A quarter of a century years after the finale of the TV show, the A-Team blunders its way into the twenty-first century – and what should be a film providing two hours of nostalgic, action-packed fun falls short of even the simplest of tasks. Instead it’s lengthy and boring.
There’s very little in the way of plot. We meet the various members of the team, headed by Liam Neeson (with a rubbish grey hair-dye job) as Hannibal Smith with Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) as Templeton “Face” Peck, martial arts fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson as B. A. Baracus and Sharlto Copley (District 9) as H.M. “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock making up the numbers. Originally an army unit stationed in Iraq, they stick their oar in when they aren’t wanted by retrieving some highly coveted metal plates, get set up and face prison terms. After breaking out of prison, the A-Team set about clearing their names in renegade style, which at one point sees them fly a tank.
If that sounds like fun, it isn’t – there’s just nothing to redeem this. Sharlto Copley’s borderline insane Murdock is probably the pick of the bunch, but with a dreadfully underdeveloped plot there’s absolutely no weight behind all the would-be impressive action sequences. Fingers crossed the inevitable sequel somehow never happens.
GAINSBOURG
Cert: 15
Rhys Griffiths
Graphic novelist turned movie director Joann Sfar makes his debut with this surrealist biopic of cult (at least on this side of the channel) French singer and all round king-of-cool Serge Gainsbourg. Delivered with all the style and chic its subject matter demands, the film treads close to style-over-substance but is a largely successful story of a remarkable life.
The film traces the journey of the young Lucien Ginsburg from his Jewish childhood in pre-Second World War France to his transformation into the Brigitte-Bardot-dating, pop icon Serge Gainsbourg, portrayed here brilliantly by Eric Elmosnino. Serge smokes and seduces his way though numerous women, the volume of which is topped only by the amount of cigarettes he gets through. Among his various lovers is Jane Birkin, played by the young actress Lucy Gordon (who tragically killed herself last year after filming). It’s a story of success and excess, journeying through Serge’s impressive back catalogue and culminating in alcohol-induced derailment.
What saves Gainsbourg from amounting to a pretty formulaic, if educational, biopic, is the stylistic presentation by director Sfar, who marks himself as a talent to watch out for. There’s great imagination – Serge is followed by an anti-Semitic caricature who repeatedly pops up as the devil on his shoulder, for instance – and Gainsbourg is visually entrancing. Whilst it might test patience at just over two hours long, it’s both an impressive debut and an elegant tribute to the man who for many epitomizes Gallic cool.
Theatre
anne boleyn
SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE
Timothy Barber
There’s political skulduggery, heresy, backstabbing, spying, adultery and no shortage of theological and constitutional squabbling in Howard Brenton’s new play, which uses the life of Henry VIII’s second wife to examine one of the most cataclysmic periods in British history. Brenton maps a line from the break with Rome and the Reformation under Henry (to enable his divorce from Catherine of Aragon and marriage to Anne) to the drawing up of the King James Bible decades later – arguably the most influential work ever published in the English language, which Brenton sees as finally drawing to an end the bloody hostilities between Protestants and Catholics.
Dramatic events for sure, and yet the one thing this play is curiously short of ¬– for the most part – is drama. Anne herself, winningly played by Miranda Raison (who is taking the same role in the Globe’s concurrent production of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII), mixes hard-nosed ambition and religious passion beneath her slinky, charming, notably fair (Anne was famously dark in complexion) exterior, but it’s not clear which is really motivating her. We learn even less of Henry’s interior life (Anthony Howell), as the play keeps skipping forwards years on an almost arbitrary basis.
By far the most interesting character and performance is James Garnon’s King James I, looking back at the reign of Anne Boleyn as he attempts to marshal the religious forces of his own time. Gay, Scottish, Tourettes-afflicted, and an outrageous wit, he’s also a cerebral, steadfast politician. Garnon gives a virtuoso performance that’s equal and opposite to the sparse entertainment on offer when he’s offstage. One looks forward to seeing more from this actor.