S.W.A.T. Review

"S.W.A.T." reviews

Movie

S.W.A.T.

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2006-09-19 23:12:09

Rating

1.5/5

Provider

CinemaSource

Review

From the minute S.W.A.T. starts rolling, it's clear we've got a wanna-be blockbuster on our hands. And we all know what that means.

Story

It means that what little plot there is will be formulaic and predictable. It means a dashing hero will spout pithy one-liners, while his sidekicks will try to be funny and fail. But there will also be a cool helicopter crash and a lot of firepower and maybe even some blood and guts. Cool! On that basis, S.W.A.T. does not disappoint. It doesn't much matter that the villain of the story, a drug trafficker/murderer/arms dealer called Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez), only really comes on the scene in the last 45 minutes or so, or that until then, the villain is any criminal anywhere in the city that comes in contact with the newly formed, yet much-maligned, five-person S.W.A.T. team that's the center of the story. Led by Sgt. ''Hondo'' Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson), the team is composed mostly of the force's unreliable renegades and unwanted rejects: Jim Street (Colin Farrell), T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles), Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez), Michael Boxer (Brian Van Holt) and Deke Kaye (LL Cool J). After an intense training period and a few impressive successes, the underdog team is called in to save the day when Montel makes a televised offer of $100 million to anyone who can break him out of jail--and L.A.'s criminal element comes out in force to do so.

Acting

The lack of a plot during the first hour and a half of this movie is probably why the studio is euphemistically billing it as ''character-driven.'' It's kind of like saying that tiny efficiency apartment you're renting is ''cozy.'' Don't let them get one over on you, though; these characters are every bit as shallow as you expect gun-toting action heroes to be. If you want to know what drives somebody to tackle a profession that requires them to shoot people in cold blood on an almost daily basis, you won't find out watching S.W.A.T.. Farrell at least seems to want to get at the underbelly of the S.W.A.T. psychology, but his stereotypically heroic character lacks the complexity that would allow him to do it. So Farrell rolls those limpid brown eyes wildly in their sockets as if he's trying to let out his inner serial killer and mumbles his way through the lines. Jackson, on the other hand, doesn't even try to give us more. He simply phones this one in (''$20 million? Summer blockbuster? Sure, I'll do it. What's it about again?''). Fortunately, Rodriguez is more bearable as the tough Sanchez--she lights up the screen and has great timing--and Martinez makes a very sexy bad guy.

Direction

The amount of gun violence in S.W.A.T. is particularly startling, even for a big blockbuster, because the aforementioned, shallow characters never really reflect on what they do. The film justifies its violence in one line of dialogue--''S.W.A.T. is a life saving organization, not a life taking one''--yet we only meet one person whose life was saved, and even she took a bullet in the process. But we do see an awful lot of nameless, faceless criminals get blown to bits. Don't get me wrong; I'm no Joe Lieberman. I loved Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, and I think Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are among the best movies ever made. It's not that there's even anything wrong with a good ol' fashioned shoot-'em-up movie--although how S.W.A.T. ever got a PG-13 rating is beyond me. Just don't patronize the audience with some false justification for blowing away half the cast and most of the extras. We're really much smarter than that.

Bottom Line

Frustratingly shallow summer blockbuster fare, S.W.A.T. takes gratuitous gun violence to a whole new level.

Movie

S.W.A.T.

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2005-10-25 19:12:18

Provider

Review

The idea of Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson running around on screen as a pair of hard-nosed cops must be like aural nectar to just about any exec in Hollywood. Two of the towns most bankable stars up to their necks in action and automatic weapons? Surely SWAT is too good to be true...

The Irish hellraiser stars as Jim Street, a member of the elite Special Weapons And Tactics arm of the LAPD. His partners rash actions though, combined with Jim's unwillingness to grass him up, sees him kicked off SWAT and given a job arming his colleagues from the safety of the station. But when the maverick Sgt. Hondo (Jackson) is called upon to put together his own unit comprising of the best of the best, he picks Jim - much to the predictable dismay of the Captain (Larry Poindexter). With his team in place Hondo is give his first mission - to transport a high-security prisoner (Olivier Martinez) to jail. Unfortunately for Hondo and co., this crim has just let it be known that he'll pay $100 million to anyone who can bust him out. This SWAT team are going to be in for a busy day...

As high-concept movies go, SWAT is pretty much up there with the likes of Pearl Harbor and Armageddon in that everything you think is going to happen more or less does.

People get shot, things get blown-up, there's double-crosses, love interests and male-bonding galore - but the movie lacks any real soul or cohesion. The central premise is a good one but all too often gangs of random thugs appear intent on freeing the Martinez and what is effectively all-out war comes to the streets of LA.

Also director Clark Johnson isn't afraid most of every cliché in the book so no plot developments really come as a surprise.

Ultimately SWAT could have been a whole lot better had a more thought-through script been used. As it is, the movie feels like little more than an extended music video.