The Philosophy of A-Team

WordsFinest has opened its judgmental, lead-lined doors to welcome one of its new contributing writers. We gave him the A-Team review. What did he think?


More after the jump!




By Terence Cudney

What is it about a retro TV show-turned-movie makes you want to hop into your car, drive twenty-five minutes, and pay ten big ones? Crazy, barely-possible action sequences and a great Mr. T impersonator, of course! Granted, he never does actually say the esteemed catchphrase in the movie, but when the knuckles of Sergeant B.A. Baracus’ left hand were adorned with the letters “P-I-T-Y”, not one person in the theater could wait to see his right hand.

“The A-Team” film was exactly what most hoped it would be, from massive explosions and awesome hand-to-hand combat, to over-the-top characters and great one-liners. Liam Neeson was a surprise smash as Colonel Hannibal Smith, delivering the line “I love it when a plan comes together” in style. The entire film was a hoot to watch, and certainly kept me on the edge of my seat.

But something in the movie didn’t sit right with me. There are beats where A-Team inexplicably delves into Gandhian philosophy. Following their relatively short run in maximum-security prisons, Sergeant “Bad Attitude” Baracus emerges changed. He has lost his imperious mohawk, and reveals that he no longer cares to kill, having read Gandhi, among other notable proponents of non-violence. Cut to a scene where Hannibal and Baracus engage in a spirited debate about Gandhi. B.A. recites the famous Indian’s saying that “Victory attained by violence is tantamount to defeat, for it is momentary.” Hannibal, always prepared with a retort, chooses another Gandhian quote: “‘It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence?’”

 

Touché! What Gandhi really wanted to tell us is that we all have violence in our hearts, so violence is totally fine, unless you’re a total wuss…WRONG! This is a terrible rebuttal. Even at the grammatical level, Gandhi is giving an exception, not a rule. Now I could imagine how an accusation of “impotence”, even indirectly, would make the hairs on any Ranger’s neck bristle with indignity. But that doesn’t mean that the quote advocates violence. In fact, in the way that the words are phrased, it sounds as though Gandhi considers violent men to be the impotent ones. That may be the power of nonviolence.

"Wuss."

We see “Bad Attitude” Baracus becomes visibly conflicted. In the final act of the movie, he makes a pivotal kill, triumphantly removing his beanie to reveal a newly-coiffed mohawk. This is portrayed to the audience as an achievement – a character has experienced true growth and discovered his better self. But he hasn’t. B.A. is just back in his element, playing his old game. And that’s the problem: A-Team references Gandhi for the sake of trying to appear deeper than it is, and the fact that it uses that philosophy to justify Baracus’ return to his old self conveys a complete misunderstanding of the actual referenced philosophy. 

Now, I should stress that the point on Gandhi was not particularly central to the plot of A-Team. But why bother to awkwardly stick philosophy in A-Team if you’re not even going to reference it properly? I do not want to turn this into a rant on how our culture glorifies violence and bashes pacifism as weakness. But sometimes, for the sake of entertainment, we go to great pains to excuse poor actions and downplay great ones. As has been noted in previous posts on this site, we want to envision ourselves as innately capable of being the hero of a story, rather than make the hero an ideal we reach toward.

Gandhi was a hero. His legacy of satyagraha, or passive resistance, asks us to reach beyond our violent tendencies to powers even greater and more fundamental. He argues that it takes more courage to withstand a beating and hold strong than to strike back and, as a result, implicitly acknowledge the power of violence. By not responding to violence, a man is able to discredit its power. If a man simply allows himself to be beaten, what power is left for the assailant? Satyagraha reveals that power is not in the hands of the strongest, but in the hands of those who realize physical strength will never be humanity’s greatest attribute. Unfortunately, the writers of “The A-Team” didn’t consider any of this.

Hannibal. Baracus. With all due respect...please shut up!)

That quote Hannibal cited? There’s actually more to it. “It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent.” Gandhi is showing a progression of the potential for man. If a man is impotent, he should work to be violent, for that grants him some degree of worth and capability. But if he should wish to become truly powerful, truly potent, he must make himself above violence. Non-violence is nothing without potency, ambition, or drive.

Bottom line? It would’ve been pretty novel if A-Team had let Baracus – its manliest, toughest hombre – fully realize the vulnerability that the movie kept hinting he’d had all along: a conscience. Baracus can see the depravity in violence and taking human life, but to preserve his archetype as a tank-like action hero, maybe he can still find a way to fight - as long as he doesn’t cross the line (maybe he learns aikido, which is about using your attacker’s violence against them). Point is, they could have found a compromise that would’ve allowed action AND actual character development.

A-Team’s a great movie. It’s a solid piece of entertainment in a rather lackluster summer for movies. But the writers of A-Team 2 should stay the hell away from Gandhi and stick to what an A-Team movie should always be: a joyfully-shallow action movie.

Grade: B+