The A-Team movie and my brother

Last Wednesday was our 9th wedding anniversary and we decided to use anniversary money from my in-laws to go see the A-Team movie.   I definitely watched this show as a child and wondered what I would think of the movie.

It was a lot of fun.  The actors who played Face and Murdoch didn't really look like the original actors but the more you watched the more you realized how much they had the personalities and mannerisms of the originals down pat.  Liam Neeson played Hannibal, which was really fun.  It surprised me to see such a big name actor but I got the impression that they all had a blast creating the movie. 

I was a little taken aback at how much watching the movie brought my brother into my mind.  We watched the show together so often.  My brother adored B.A., Mr T's character.  We had contests during the commercials to see who could guess first what each ad was advertising.  And man, did we think we were cool when we quoted Hannibal, "I love it when a plan comes together".  (Truth be told, I still think I'm pretty cool when I say it now.)

My brother has been incarcerated since last summer -- meth related charges.  Thinking about him while watching the movie just sort of made me ache.  I ache for the time he will be in jail, for things he will miss, for the freedom he lacks.  I want to be able to turn back time to those crucial moments where he weighed financial gain against breaking the law and to those moments where he weighed depression, sadness, and isolation against using a drug that, at least temporarily, took all of that away.

And of course, I wonder how much having B.A. as a role model affected my brother's life choices.  :)  I can say that here because I know that he would find it as funny as I do.

As a side-note, there is an interesting subplot in the movie regarding B.A.'s vow of non-violence -- made while in jail.  I was a little disappointed with the way it played out.  I assume there are all sorts of internet discussions out there about this facet of the movie and I may try to find a few -- as someone whose main church involvement in the past 15 years has been in a pacifist denomination, it was an intriguing part of the movie.