Movie Review SWAT

S.W.A.T (2003) 

Directed by Clark Johnson

Written by David Ayer, David McKenna

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Renner, L.L Cool J, Josh Charles, Michelle Rodriguez, Olivier Martinez 

Release Date August 8th, 2003

Published August 7th, 2003

Can anyone give me one plausible reason why this film is related to the 70's TV show indicated in its title? Other than that killer theme song that is. Outside of the song, there is no necessity to relate this movie to that lame Robert Urich lead TV serial, other than maybe to avoid the hassle of having to explain that they are not related. Why tie the film to this sinking lead weight of a 70's TV bomb? S.W.A.T only lasted one season on ABC. It's not as if remakes of 70's TV shows are guaranteed blockbusters. That only works when you can populate the lead roles with super hot babes like Charlie’s Angels.

Then again, maybe that is the theory here, but with reverse genders. Colin Farrell, LL Cool J and even Sam Jackson to a point could be considered eye candy for the ladies. That said you could do that without the TV connection. So we are back to my original question. Regardless of the TV connection or the eye candy, S.W.A.T. as directed by cop show vet Clark Johnson is a somewhat competent action movie/police procedural.

Colin Farrell stars as Jim Streets, the same role as Bobby Urich on TV but the comparison ends there. Streets is a swat team member who joins his fellow teammates at the site of a bank robbery. It's a nightmare scenario that evokes memories of a real life incident in Brentwood, California just last year where two heavily armed men shot it out with police in broad daylight, a scenario they were rumored to have cribbed from the Michael Mann’s Heat. Call it art imitating life, imitating art.

Anyway, Street and his partner Gamble (Jeremy Renner) are deployed on the roof and gain access to the hostages being held by two more armed men inside the bank. Despite being told to wait, Street and Gamble make a move and put down the bad guys and save the hostages. Unfortunately one hostage is wounded during the rescue and the boys are rewarded with a demotion for Street and firing for Gamble who pulled the trigger.

Cut to six months later, Street is stuck cleaning guns amongst other of the worst jobs a cop can do and still be a cop. Things change though when an ex swat leader named Hondo Harrelson (Jackson) returns from retirement. Hondo's gig is to help the LAPD remake its image by assembling a top-notch new SWAT team, a team more competent and efficient than ever before. Hondo's first choice is Street, but not before he jumps through some hoops and watches the rest of the team come together. The recruits are Deke (LL Cool J), Sanchez (Michele Rodriguez), McCabe (Sports Night's Josh Charles) and Boxer (Brian Van Holt).

There’s a couple of montages of the personal lives and training sequences and one very well choreographed training sequence set on a decommissioned airplane. We then move headlong into the main plot of the film which is the transfer of a high profile prisoner, an international drug runner named Montel (Olivier Martinez). Sounds easy, and it would have been except Montel has, through the throng of media covering his shootout with police and eventual arrest, offered 100 million bucks to anyone who can get him out of police custody and back home to France.

What's surprising is that despite the typicality of the stunts featured in the film’s trailer, S.W.A.T. unfolds very logically from the opening hostage sequence to the training all the way to the final gun battles. Director Clark Johnson makes even the biggest stunt sequences that have never been seen in real life seem perfectly plausible in the context of the film. Though I must quibble with the drug dealers who happen to have rocket launchers laying around just in case they have to break a rich guy out of jail for 100 million dollars. Hey, that is why we have the willing suspension of disbelief?

Almost everything in S.W.A.T. is pro quality, especially the casting which smartly unites a number of recognizable faces both well known and the type that you know you've seen before but you've never known the name. The cast makes any of the rough spots of the film easier to take because we like the actors. Each actor is very sympathetic to the audience.

However, despite all that I liked about S.W.A.T., the film has two massive, nearly unforgivable flaws. One is its ending which goes ten minutes too long. The other is one massive lapse in the otherwise impeccably logical flow of the film. There is a decision made by one character that calls that character's sanity into question. It's a decision that is so highly illogical that it renders what comes after it ridiculous. It's one of those moments where if the character makes the right decision, the one that is obvious to everyone but him, the film would be over right then. If you can't fix a logical hole better than this, don't make the movie.

For most of the time S.W.A.T. is a suspenseful, action filled thriller. It's a rare actioner with a logical narrative thrust to it. Until, of course, the demons of film shorthand step in and ruin everything. It's a shame because there are elements of a pretty good movie sprinkled throughout this otherwise dreary television retread.