Movie Reviews

Disappointing. I was really looking forward to seeing this, hoping that it might be a really gritty, accurate portrayal of life in the Special Weapons And Tactics team. Instead, it was a pretty standard Hollywood action movie that played out rather like a piece of recruitment propaganda for S.W.A.T.: "If you join us, be prepared for fun, glamorous work, where you get to play with lots of cool toys, work with really hot chicks, and never really be in any danger of getting hurt."

Colin Farrel, in one of his very rare 2003 film appearances, plays Jim Street, a reckless S.W.A.T. member who's kicked off the force until being recruited to join Sgt. Dan "Hondo" Harrelson's (Samuel L. Jackson) new team. The streets of L.A. get out of hand after a big-time crime dude is captured, then offers $100 million to whoever helps him escape. Cliches abound, including the recruiting montage, where Hondo picks up the various team members, the training montage, the crime-spree in L.A. montage, the former partner-gone-bad, and the relationship between Jim and the hot Latino female S.W.A.T. officer. Oh, and heavy-metal guitar riffs play in the soundtrack whenever the S.W.A.T. truck races up to a new crime scene (what I thought might've been the film's sole redeeming aspect -- the authenticity of the S.W.A.T.'s gear, uniforms, and weapons -- was struck down when I watched one of the DVD's special features and found out that the "S.W.A.T. truck" looks nothing like it does in the film. Apparently the real thing isn't quite as "cool" as what the filmmakers came up with).

I had high hopes for S.W.A.T., but they were not met at all.