S.W.A.T.

Rating

Director

Clark Johnson

Screenplay

David Ayer, David McKenna

Length

117 min.

Starring

Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez, LL Cool J, Josh Charles, Jeremy Renner, Brian Van Holt, Olivier Martinez, Reg E. Cathey, Larry Poindexter

MPAA Rating

PG-13 (For violence, language and sexual references)

Review

The latest big screen adaptation of a 1970s television series finds S.W.A.T. taking on one of its own.

Colin Farrell stars as Jim Street, a talented Los Angeles cop whose focus is on being a valuable member of the Special Weapons And Tactics (S.W.A.T.) team. His rebellious nature alongside his partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner)gets him kicked off the team and sitting the sidelines waiting for his chance to return to the squad. To downplay the negative image S.W.A.T. has developed, ex-S.W.A.T. agent Sgt. ‘Hondo’ Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) is brought back to active duty to select and train an elite force that will bring glory back to the department.

For his team, he selects David "Deke" Kay (LL Cool J), T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles), Michael Boxer(Brian Van Holt), Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) and Street. Together they train to become the best team S.W.A.T. has and get to prove it when they capture mob hitman Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez)after his escape from a prison bus.

All isn’t well for long when Montel announces on television that he will pay a handsome sum to anyone who breaks him out of police custody. Several groups come to the rescue but it’s Street’s old buddy Gamble who comes successfully to his aide leading Street and his fellow teammates on a race to thwart him.

S.W.A.T. starts off fairly promising with good relationships between its characters. In an intense opening sequence and its aftermath, Farrell and Renner rebound from one another effectively. Their chemistry sets a unique style that diminishes as the film drags on. Farrell then fades into the background as he fails to achieve the quality of work he displayed in The Recruit. The same can be said for Renner who, after his brilliant performance in Dahmer ,never breaks from his stereotypical maniac performance enough to become a better-rounded villain.

Samuel L. Jackson continues in the same vein he’s been typecast in for his last several films. He plays the same gruff, tough and sarcastic character that audiences have come to enjoy without any of the range or quality his peers deliver. LL Cool J, Charles and Van Holt yield subdued caricatures of their given roles that fail to capture the audience’s attention or concern. Rodriguez does everything she can to play the atypical love interest and does an admirable job with as little as she’s given.

Director Clark Johnson takes David Ayer and David McKenna’s sheepish screenplay and delivers a weak, bombastic picture. His concern for action over performances gives the audience the impression that all one needs to do to make a film is slap some named-actors into roles designed for high school thespians, give the audience a few quick edits and some dialogue clichés and blind them with so much unnecessary plot conventions. He seems to assume that this makes a quality production when all it does is deprive audiences of great storytelling, compelling performance and a rewarding theatrical experience.

S.W.A.T. is great when all you want to do is eat popcorn, drink soda and miss 30 minutes of the film walking a mile through the theater to find a bathroom. Its sole purpose is to drag adrenaline junkies to the theater and dazzle them with two hours of chases and explosions and reap the profits of an unsuspecting film enthusiast.

Review Written

September 30, 2003