S.W.A.T

What's the Plot?

Jim Street (Colin Farrell) was a member of the S.W.A.T. - Special Weapons And Tactics - until, after backing his partner in a controversial decision during a hostage situation, both are thrown off the team. Whilst his partner quits in disgust, Street agrees to a demotion hoping that he may be allowed back on the S.W.A.T. force one day. It looks like he could get his chance when team commander Dan "Hondo" Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) arrives with a task of training 5 top-notch cops for a new unit. After recruiting 4 - Deacon "Deke" Kaye (James Todd Smith), Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez), Michael Boxer (Brian Van Holt) and T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles) - Hondo finally puts Street out of his misery, and puts him on the team. Despite the odds against them, they pass the training and the final test only to be put up against something that their training could never have prepared them for: a notorious drug lord - Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) - offers a $100 million bounty to anyone who can free him from police custody. His offer, broadcast over the airwaves, sends every lowlife into a frenzy, but as the team try to escort him to the Feds, it becomes apparent that someone out there has the brains and the brawn to possibly pull it off. But when, how and who?

The Review

Director Clark Johnson seems to love cops, and boy does it show. After directing TV episodes of The Shield, NYPD Blue and Homicide to name but a few, he's taken his "chosen field" from small to big screen.From his opening salvo of E.R.-styled camera work around the balls-to-the-walls entrance of a S.W.A.T. team during a hostage/robbery situation through to the Die Hard 2 meets The Long Kiss Goodnight finale, this is a film that shows the world's finest at their finest - a Top Gun with guns and ammunition instead of guys and airplanes. Infact, the team's training montage smacks of a Bruckheimer production with slo-mo shots accompanied by loud rock guitars and characterisation that could be written on the back of a matchbox, except for of course Farrell and Jackson.

The King Of Cool - Jackson - does what he does best and steals the show at every appearance, from his silhouetted-entrance to his "world's scariest police car chase." Farrell continues to build on his solid performances - Phonebooth, The Recruit and Daredevil - holding his own against Jackson and even giving him a run for his money in the banter stakes during the beginning of the film. Rodriguez's character feels slightly like the token female (not surprisingly it's she who gets injured and not her male counterparts while Todd Smith (L.L. Cool J changing his name to be taken more seriously!) gets the "family man" role to show that these are ordinary folk doing extraordinary things.

But, before you get the wrong idea, S.W.A.T. is an action movie...nothing more, nothing less, and in this capacity it more than excels. From it's nod to Clear And Present Danger's ambush sequence - a convoy caught in a bottleneck - through to the teams' test on a make-believe terrorist-filled plane, all the way until an OTT set piece involving the 6th Street Bridge, it delivers exactly what it says in the trailer... and what it says in it's title -S eriously W icked A ction and T ension. Until Lord Of The Rings Return Of The King, this is your slice of thrilling entertainment.

STEVE'S SCORE