Dan Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) and Jim Street (Colin Farrell) have the bad guys in their sights in S.W.A.T, an average action flick.

So, S.W.A.T.'s the point?
S.W.A.T.


Stars Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell and Michelle Rodriguez. Director: Clark Johnson. Rated M.

Reviewer :: Pte John Wellfare

Before S.W.A.T. Clark Johnson's directorial experience was in television episodes of popular, mostly police-related series such as NYPD Blue, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, The Shield and Third Watch and the style has evidently flowed into this police-based action flick.

S.W.A.T. members Jim Street (Colin Farrell) and his partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) disobey orders during a hostage stand-off and are kicked off the team after a hostage is wounded. Street agrees to work in the Q-Store while Gamble leaves the police force altogether.

Six-months later Street is recruited by veteran commander Dan Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson), who is putting together a kind of dirty dozen-style S.W.A.T. team.

Also included in the team is Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) - keep an eye out for the usual "you're a woman?" scene here - and a few others, including one who is Street's ex-girlfriend's big brother - the obligatory brief moment of tension follows.

After some training and a competency test, the team is assigned to escort recently arrested international drug baron Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) to federal prison. Trouble ensues when Montel offers $100 million to anyone who can free him.

I thought the $100 million offer was a good angle and as far as I know an original one, but it takes half the movie to get to that point and so there isn't enough time to explore all the possibilities.

It seems Johnson is trying to make the movie realistic with all the training sequences, but the focus on realism disappears as soon as the real missions begin (in a scene near the end our heroes, driving a Limo, manage to catch a small jet on a takeoff run and ram it off the road).

There are some good ideas behind the action sequences, but the scenes are poorly managed. Despite some very active camera work and NYPD Blue-style switching to TV-news sequences, most of the action scenes feel like a game of chess; one side moves, then the other.

Ultimately, S.W.A.T. is lacking as a movie because it's designed more like a TV series; every scene offers a little more than the last but always leaves the viewer not quite satisfied. The idea behind this for TV shows is to make sure everyone tunes in again next week but in a movie it's just plain frustrating.

Perhaps I'm making the movie out to be worse than it is. S.W.A.T. is basically just an average action movie, but one that lacks the punch and presence of some other recent additions to the genre.