I could have sworn that Samuel L. Jackson already did a Special Weapons And Tactics film. Wait, he did, but they called it The Negotiator, and it wasn’t quite the same, but there were some dirty cops in that film too. Ooops, did I just give a spoiler, no I didn’t because you should have already learned about this from the trailers, which took away a fair amount of suspense, and leads to the biggest downfall of the film, predictability.

In the film we begin with a typical LA bank robbery where the bad guys have automatic weapons and body armor. So the outgunned street cops call in the SWAT team to rescue the hostages and get the bad guys. Problem is, hotshot SWAT boy Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) wants to be the hero and disobeys orders and ends up wounding a hostage. So he and his partner Jim Street (Colin Farrell, Daredevil) end up in trouble with Gamble being kicked off the force and Street has to do crap work. Obviously if you had seen an advertising for the film you know then that Gamble is turning over to the dark side. Anyway, after some high profile police problems, the police chief calls in old time SWAT guy Hondo (Jackson, Basic) to form a new team of SWAT guys to help crack down on crime. So Hondo assembles the gang consisting of Street, Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez, Blue Crush), Deke (LL Cool J, Rugrats Go Wild!), T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles), and Michael Boxer (Brian Van Holt, Confidence). Captain Fuller (Larry Poindexter) is not thrilled with some of the selections, but Hondo persuades him to go along with the plan anyway, with Fuller hoping Hondo fails. Skip ahead to after the misfit group passes their training and tests to where the real action begins after a couple LA patrol cops unknowingly nab a high profile fugitive, Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez, Unfaithful). This fugitive is a Russian mafia gangster wanted in a dozen countries or so that then offers 100 million dollars to whoever can free him. This brings out the crazies and the local gangstas’ to try a jailbreak, which then the police have to call in the Calvary, SWAT.

Others to mention in this re-make of the 70s TV show are Reginald E. Cathey, Page Kennedy, James DuMont, Lindsey Ginter, Lucinda Jenney, Domenick Lombardozzi, and E. Roger Mitchell. Directing the film is longtime TV director Clark Johnson. The writing credits go to a bunch of people who based the story on the characters from the TV show that Robert Hamner created.

SWAT has good action sequences, but then again so does every other action flick this summer. So its pretty much take your pick from Bad Boys II, Pirates of the Caribbean, T3, the new Tomb Raider, Charlie’s Angels 2, The Hulk, The Italian Job, 2 Fast 2 Furious, or The Matrix Reloaded. One bonus for SWAT is that it has some decent laughs along the way, but not nearly enough to make up for the audience knowing what is going to happen long before it happens. All that said, I give SWAT four couches out of ten, but still enjoyable even at that.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:46:04 AM

Click Here to get back into frames.