S.W.A.T. : Unité d'élite

The Big Screen version of the small screen cult favorite is a pretty good thriller. No, its not the best movie in the world but a good way to spend two hours.

The plot concerns a wanted international criminal who offers 100 million to anyone who will spring him. The action is mostly realistic as are the characters. The real complaint is that the captain is too much of an ass and there are one or two bumps that don't ring true, especially at the end but its not anything that will spoil the fun. Best of all there are a couple of really good action sequences.

Recommended, especially on cable

Thrown into a desk job when his partner Gamble disobeys orders and shoots a hostage, Jim Street bides his time waited beside being demeaned on a daily basis. When the commissioner brings in old school SWAT leader hondo to put together a young outfit, Street is offered to chance to retrain with the select team and is soon back on duty. Meanwhile a man is pulled over by a black and white for a broken rear light, but is found to be a drug baron. SWAT are sent to escort the man to a secure prison but, as they take him into a holding centre he announces that whoever breaks him out of jail will get $100 million dollars. SWAT soon have much to content with and must ensure that Montel does not escape.

In a summer crammed with more sequels than ever, I was drawn to go and see SWAT simply because it offered some hope by not being a sequel to a past film (I didn't know at the time it was a TV conversion). Unfortunately, while not lifting it's formula from a predecessor, it essentially lifts itself from many other films and lacks anything that really makes it stand out. The central premise (the `$100 meellion dollar' bit) is interesting but only leads to a big long action scene that acts as the film's second act. Prior to this we are given the usual training stuff which, while not new, is still enjoyable.

It's weakness is that it is suffering from too much testosterone and therefore has to much of the men banging heads with each other and comparing size! The second half is enjoyable as it is just noisy action all the way, but it suffers from being too overblown. A scene where several different street gangs attack a police convoy is an example of this but happily the rest is not as bad as this and is actually quite good. My main complaint was that this second act felt like it should have been the main body of the film and that the training etc was just the introduction. However the second act seemed very short and I came away with the feeling that this was made with a sequel in mind from day one - just like MIB felt like it was made to get to MIIB!

That said it is still fun to watch, albeit unoriginal and clichéd fun. The overblown, all-destroying action probably doesn't do justice to the actual precise and tactical work that SWAT units do and it did make me wonder why someone didn't just take the `$100 meellion dollar' idea and put it in a normal cop film setting but hey-ho.

The cast is really good on paper but hardly make much of a splash in reality. Farrell continues to land on his feet with yet another starring role. His American accent hasn't gotten any better but he is still watchable with his tough guy charisma (would be nice to see him build on this rather than relying on it though). Jackson is slumming it a bit and doesn't really lift the film by his presence. He is no stranger to action movies but he doesn't manage to do much here other than add a face to the mix. Smith (LL Cool J, now starting to use his real name in credits) is OK but again doesn't do much special; I found it amusing that both Jackson and LL had actually made Deep Blue Sea more enjoyable by their performances but neither did it here. Rodriguez is not allowed to show she can act at any point, but she is easy on the eye and is good enough. Martinez's villain is OK but it was never clear where he was from despite the fact he had a French accent - have I missed something, was he a French drug lord? If anything his role marks a sad day for English actors everywhere, from now on it seems that, due to their actions over Iraq, the French will be providing the baddies in American action movies from now on!

Overall this is a reasonably enjoyable piece of noisy entertainment. If you expect anything unique or clever then you will be really disappointed. However if you are prepared for lots of running with guns, noise and macho posturing then this should be enough to satisfy you. For me it didn't stand out from the pack but it was still an OK way to spend a few hours.

S.W.A.T. may be the best action film since THE TRANSPORTER...Just ignore the plot holes, leaps of logic, and occasional cold-bloodedness, and enjoy the fast-paced action and macho camaraderie!

Jim Street (Colin Farrell, easily 2003's busiest actor!) is a decorated LAPD S.W.A.T. member, but when his partner, Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner, looking like a pumped-up Elijah Wood) disregards orders during a bank robbery, and wounds a 'civilian' female, while taking out the leader, the lady sues the city (considering the baddie was about to kill her, the reaction seems a bit illogical!). Dressed down by their boss, Capt. Fuller, Gamble goes ballistic, and quits the force; Street "eats crow", and is demoted to working in the Weapons Cage, cleaning weapons and putting up with verbal abuse from former teammates (who thought he'd 'sold' his partner out...an attitude that seems illogical, as well, as he'd been in their ranks three years, and they SHOULD have known him better! ). He maintains an insane physical regimen, and prays for the day he can return to S.W.A.T.

Six months pass, and the unit's reputation is on the skids, so veteran warhorse 'Hondo' Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson, looking sexier and more dangerous than ever!) is called in, to put together an elite team inside of S.W.A.T., sort of a 'baddest of the bad' crew, to take on worst case scenarios (how this would help the performance of the REST of the unit, who knows?) He picks Josh Charles and Brian Van Holt from S.W.A.T., LL Cool J, a street cop with an 'attitude', Michelle Rodriguez, as a female cop with even MORE of an attitude...and Jim Street, with whom he bonds like a long-lost brother, despite threats from Capt. Fuller. There is GREAT chemistry between Jackson and Farrell, and their scenes together are film highlights!

After 'DIRTY DOZEN'-like training scenes, and embarrassing the egotistical Fuller by ace-ing his terrorist hijacking training scenario ("Best time ever, right?" Hondo razzes the Captain, as the last 'terrorist' is taken down), the new unit is given a choice assignment...moving a youthful international crime kingpin (played by UNFAITHFUL's Olivier Martinez) to a holding facility. Unfortunately, in front of television cameras, Martinez offers $100 million to anyone who can spring him...and virtually EVERY hood in L.A. decides to take a shot at the money. Then the fun REALLY begins, as the film becomes one long action sequence!

While the subsequent 'surprises' are predictable, and the climax, a Lear Jet landing on a bridge, is impossible (the winds alone would have cracked up the small aircraft against the narrow confines of the span), the pacing is so fast and furious that you accept the leap of logic of the sequence, and the subsequent fight between Street and...well, watch the movie!

While I'm not sure S.W.A.T. will encourage tourism to L.A. (which is pictured as so crime-ridden that it makes New York City look like an Amish village!), the film IS fun, in a violent sort of way, and seeing the star of the original series, Steve Forrest, in a brief cameo, was a pleasure! Now, if I can just get that darned theme song out of my head...

Though the trailers and commercials made it appear to be a hard-core action movie, the end result is anything but. Aside from the (expected) opening action sequence, the first half of the movie is pretty devoid of anything resembling action! It mainly consists of introducing the characters, bringing them together, getting them to work together blah blah blah. Now, that in itself isn't bad, but what makes it bad here is that EVERYTHING about this has a ring of "I've seen this many times before!" There's NOTHING about these characters or this material that seems fresh or even delivered with some liveliness. While it really can't be called downright terrible, it still has you muttering "Yeah yeah, cut to the chase already."

Though the "chase" isn't any better - in fact, I would say it's more badly done than the bland character development that unfolded for the first hour. For one thing we have a really boring bad guy being dealt with - sure, his "100 me-llion dollars" cry is a promising start, but other than that he is developed just as much as a generic thug. And the action sequences suffer from what hurts many Hollywood action movies these days - jerky camera movement, close-up shots, and quick cutting that makes it hard to get a sense of just what's going on. Even when it's something as simple as two men beating each other up, you can't tell who is who! Instead of watching this, track down the Hong Kong action movie EU STRIKE FORCE (a.k.a. THE BIG BULLET), a sometimes silly but energetic and *fun* movie about a S.W.A.T. team, with much more lively characters.

S.W.A.T. is a nothing more and nothing less than what you expect from it - god action film, the script is very predictable and full of clichees, but it has enough logic and good sense to avoid the ridicule. Acting is average good, effects are average good, and directing is average good - so what you get is an average good action film. Get your popcorn, biers as well if you are at home, sit back and relax. Nothing more, nor less 7 out of 10 on my personal scale.