S.W.A.T.
(2003)
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A movie adaptation of the 1970s television series, this is the story of Jim Street, a special tactics team member. Street is demoted after his partner shot dead a hostage but he is given another chance to prove himself... |
There's the germ of a riveting thriller idea in SWAT: a billionaire international terrorist offers $100 million to the criminal who springs him from US custody. Then a SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team has to escort him across LA while every hoodlum not locked up tries for the bounty. It's the kind of idea that would have been done brilliantly by John Carpenter in the 1970s or John McTiernan in the 1980s. Sadly it comprises only a quarter of an hour at the end of this half-baked misfire, while the rest follows Colin Farrell's interminable retraining as a SWAT officer after being kicked off the team for disobeying an order. Farrell is bland, Samuel L Jackson appears to be aware he's slumming it and despite the regulation pumping soundtrack and frenetic editing, the result remains resolutely leaden.