Hey folks, Harry here with a wonderful first review from Greta Greene. It is filled with spoilers, but at the same time, told with wonderful wit and sarcasm. Sadly - reading her review tells me that specifically... the idea... the kernal of a great premise that Mita and McKenna had FULLY explored in the S.W.A.T. script that I loved is completely wasted in this film. SAD! Beware of spoilers and wit... they're both biting here...
S.W.A.T. is crap, but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't pay $10 to go see it, or that you shouldn't look forward to its sequels, S.P.A.N.K., S.M.A.C.K. and T.H.U.M.P. because gosh darn, Colin Farrell is pretty, Michelle Rodriguez still knows how to work a punching bag, and boy howdy does LL Cool J have killer abs.
That said, S.W.A.T. has the same petty, small-stakes feel as The Recruit; it's more of an adrenaline-drainer than an adrenaline-pumper; and it wanders all over the place while making not so much sense.
Colin Farrell ("Street") is a good S.W.A.T. cop brought down by his impetuous, gun-slingin' partner. After their boss chews them out and his partner quits the force, Street eats crow and keeps his head down in the "gun cage" while he tries to angle back onto the S.W.A.T. team. Street's dialogue with his Mormon-convert gun-cage partner is some of the best in the movie--too bad it goes nowhere. (And after this and X2, Dr. Pepper rules the world of product placement via the funny movie dialogue.)
Uh, then there's something about how L.A.P.D. and S.W.A.T. need to redeem themselves in the eyes of the community. Samuel L. Jackson ("Hondo") is brought in to create an elite squad. "Why?!" isn't explained very well. There's the obligatory sequence where the wacky team is brought together: there's the black guy (LL Cool J as "Deke"), the tough Latina (Michelle Rodriguez as "Sanchez"), the Orange County white boy (Brian Van Holt as "Boxer"), the clown (Josh Charles as "McCabe") and the hero (Farrell). Boxer's little sister just broke up with Street. At first the two threaten to have an excellent Maverick-Iceman like rivalry, but then, no, their distaste for each other just peters out until the end of the movie, when Boxer (just before being shot) recommends that Street ask his sister out again. (The hot girlfriend-sister appears in a two-minute scene somewhere in the first ten minutes, breaks up with Farrell for no reason that's articulated to the audience, and then disappears from the movie entirely.)
Anyway, there are some mundane training sequences (any A-Team montage or Dukes of Hazzard car chase beats this stuff with a stick) until Olivier Martinez as Evil French Arms Dealer hollers his $100 million offer into a news camera. Evil French Arms Dealer, by the way, is a terrible villain who doesn't do anything particularly dastardly or rotten. (Besides sneering Frenchily at the camera, prissily stabbing his uncle and having a broken left taillight.)
After a brief dalliance with a wall harpoon (don't ask--it's stupid), there's a hint of excitement as L.A.'s multitude of TV news people broadcast the $100 million offer to the multitudes, which arguably should incite mass chaos as the city's fiends rise up to liberate one of their own. Sadly, L.A.'s cable must have been out, because just one motley crew of gangbangers tries a stunt involving some 18-wheelers and is then all-too-easily vanquished. Furthermore, in a movie that signals the resurgence of the post-9/11 "Aren't cops great?" genre, it's amazing that the filmmakers didn't find a way to capitalize on the audience's concern when sheriff's deputies are executed point-blank, cop choppers are blown out of the sky Black Hawk Down-style and cop cars are turned into raging fireballs. So many crispy critters, so little emotion.
Anyway, Hondo's team, having successfully passed the tired "if you suck you're fired" test, is assigned to escort Monsieur Evile to the airport or prison or somewhere, out of the way of the greedy, marauding masses. S.W.A.T.'s professional bad-assery is foiled, however, because McCabe, the joker, (Josh Charles, great as usual) and Street's old partner (Jeremy Renner) accept Frenchie's $100 million offer and spring him, after shooting Boxer and handcuffing Street to the steering wheel. The joker's turn to the dark side was shamelessly telegraphed by his penchant for drinking expensive French (!) champagne, and a few long lingering camera looks after the cop chopper was shot down. So that tension is blown, and it's at this point--as Renner, Charles and Olivier make their escape on the L.A. subway (!!!)--that S.W.A.T. becomes pure gobbledygook.
Street's ex-partner is fairly hateful and crafty, but despite Jeremy Renner's good performance, this bad cop is just not that interesting and since Frenchie isn't doing anything either, there's no feeling of head-to-head conflict, just aimless flailing. Case in point: Josh Charles gets all wishy-washy in mid-escapade ("Boxer was my friend!") and eventually shoots himself in an embarrassing denouement. A Lear Jet does land on a bridge, and the pilots who do the job ought to receive a Balls of Steel award and their own franchise. As it is, the focus on them is yet another one of the many random elements that throws the third act out of whack. There's a chase scene through a sewer that makes you wonder if the production ran out of money and was forced to commandeer the Angel sets. There's fistfight scene set in near-total darkness that it's impossible to see, much less follow. The ex-partner may or may not finally be beheaded by a train. Eventually bad guys are apprehended, nasty captains apologize for underestimating our heroes, and there's a stupid "Road trip!" dialogue exchange that is totally meaningless, followed shortly by a stupid "That one hundred million ought to buy you a good husband in there!" line, delivered outside the local prison, that is either purely terrible or just terribly read, and finally, a weirdo moment with Sanchez holding a picture of her kid and Deke on the phone with his wife that makes you think one or both of them were actually in on the plot. (This was angry cop captain's theory.) Basically, the third act has almost no urgency whatsoever. The closest thing is a weepy rich lady hostage, but she's not enough to hold up the end of this movie.
In many ways, S.W.A.T. evokes Speed (an immeasurably better movie): from the L.A. setting to the military haircut on the male lead to the Kevlar vests, to the good-elite-cop turned elite villain, to the subway showdown. Unfortunately, S.W.A.T. is not funny, scary or exciting; S.W.A.T. lacks compelling supporting characters and villains; and S.W.A.T. doesn't take advantage of a great conceit. Colin Farrell once again eats up the screen, and everyone else survives the experience, but it's not because of the movie, it's because they're movie stars and looking good is what they're paid to do.
One huge wasted opportunity is the killer theme from the TV show. Duuuuh-duh-duh-duh, da-da-daaahh, da-da-daaaaaah. (Etc.) It's overlaid briefly in the final few minutes, but could have been the core of a rousing action-movie refrain.
Another major missed chance is the brilliant conceit of "I'll give one hundred meeellion dollars to anyone who gets me out of here." But the possibilities of a single S.W.A.T. team versus a city full of ingenious, diverse, greedy gangstas is utterly blown--it's used on five-minute throwaway sequence that turns out to be about S.W.A.T.'s brilliant decoy plan. It's great that the good guys stopped the bad men with the AK-47's, but I wanted to see the Crips and the Bloods with rocket launchers.
If you must watch things explode on a large screen, go see S.W.A.T. If you can tolerate explosions on a small screen, go rent Speed instead and have at least three times the experience for a third of the price.
And that's the report on S.W.A.T. from Greta Greene.
