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The
notion of a summer blockbuster being adapted from a
less-than-inspiring '70s television show does not fill me with
joy. And I'm not
even talking about Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.
The film in question is S.W.A.T., which is about
as close as we're going to get to a 2003 version of The
Fast and the Furious (meaning it looked super assy, but
ended up being surprisingly entertaining).
S.W.A.T.,
which actually stands for Special Weapons and Tactics (not Sela
Ward Ate Tacos), starts with a Big Action Sequence, in which
masked bandits attempt to rob an LA bank.
Since the criminals wield weapons more powerful than the
regular 5-0, the S.W.A.T. unit is called in.
Long story short, the robbery is foiled, but a civilian
was accidentally shot by a S.W.A.T. agent named Brian Gamble
(Jeremy Renner, Dahmer).
Six
months later, Gamble is off the force, while his former partner,
Jim Street (Colin Farrell, Daredevil),
has been reassigned to the unit's Cage where he shines boots and
cleans guns because he refused to rat on Gamble's indiscretion.
Street's girlfriend (Ashley Scott, Birds of Prey)
moves out on him, too, so you know the poor little ex-Navy SEAL
is all down in the dumps (he's still Colin Farrell, though, so I
guess you'll just have to suspend belief a bit here).
Enter
old-school Lieutenant "Hondo" Harrelson (Samuel L.
Jackson, Basic), who is told by his crusty boss (Larry
Poindexter) to build a new, young S.W.A.T. team because it will
help the department's low approval ratings
(!). So
Hondo sniffs out some talent, including Michelle Rodriguez (Blue
Crush) and James Todd Smith/LL Cool J (Deliver
Us from Eva), and of course, Our Hero, Jim Street.
Training is difficult, but a successful team is built.
S.W.A.T.
is perfectly appealing through this point, after which it
becomes another implausible, by-the-numbers Hollywood action
film. Olivier
Martinez (Unfaithful) plays
Alex Montel, an international terrorist who is caught by the
LAPD yet manages to make a very eyebrow-raising offer on
national television: Help
him escape police custody and get $100 million. And he does it
without doing the Dr. Evil pinky thing, too.
You'll laugh at the ending, which involves a stunt on the
longest bridge in the world, which you probably didn't know was
in downtown Los Angeles.
S.W.A.T.
is made enjoyable by director Clark Johnson, who registers a
solid feature-film debut here after logging in numerous hours
behind the camera on various television police dramas like NYPD
Blue, The Wire and The Shield (his work on the
latter's pilot earned Johnson an Emmy nomination). Johnson, who
is probably best known for his work in front of the camera on Homicide
as Meldrick Lewis, cuts out the obligatory romance and features
almost no static shots, and I mean that in a good Homicide
kind of way, not in an I'm-going-to-throw-up/Michael Bay kind of
way. He also takes
advantage of the whole David Mills/David Simon/Edward Burns/Tom
Fontana connection, which means there will be a lot of familiar
faces if you're a fan of Oz, The Wire, The
Corner and Homicide.
For those of you old
enough to remember the television show, the quintessential
mid-'70s theme is back, but of course, it's funked up to modern
rock heaven. Farrell's
role was originally played by Robert Urich, while Jackson, Smith
and Josh Charles recreate characters from the now-kitschy show.
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for
violence, language and sexual references |
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