Film Review: S.W.A.T. (2003)

Difference between good and bad film can be in a single detail. This is something the author of this world experienced while watching S.W.A.T., 2003 action film directed by Clark Johnson.

The film represents remake of eponymous 1970s television series that was quite popular but still taken off the air because of complaints over violence too excessive for US network standards half a century ago. New version deals with Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT), elite unit of Los Angeles Police Department which is used in trickiest situations involving terrorists or heavily armed criminals. One of such situations is bank robbery during which SWAT team member Brian Gamble (played by Jeremy Renner) disobeys order, resulting in one of the hostages getting injured after which he and his partner Jim Street (played by Colin Farrell) being demoted afterwards. Gamble quits the force, while Street six months later rejoins SWAT team, reorganised under Sergeant Dan “Hondo” Harrelson (played by Samuel L. Jackson). Their biggest test comes after French drug lord Alex “Le Loup Rouge” Montel (played by Olivier Martinez) gets arrested in Los Angeles for traffic violation. In a desperate attempt to stave off extradition, he offers 100 million US$ bounty to anyone who would set him free and SWAT team is given task to prevent that, which means confrontation with endless hordes of heavily armed gang members.

S.W.A.T. represents one of many Hollywood attempts to exploit real or imagined nostalgia for popular TV shows from decades ago. Most of such efforts were misguided and ended as disappointments, but this one starts promisingly. Directed by Clark Johnson, Canadian actor best known for portraying Meldrick Lewis in Homicide: Life on the Street, this film looks unusually realistic for big budget summer blockbuster. Some of it can be attributed to David Ayer, writer best known for his work on Training Day and whose speciality are gritty crime dramas involving police on mean streets of Los Angeles. Screenplay he co-wrote with David McKenna at first appears to belong to films that have more connection with real life. Opening scene is clearly inspired by real life 1997 North Hollywood shootout and even some of the dialogues are copied from official police communications transcripts.

But it all comes apart in a scene after main villain makes his outrageous offer, recruiting almost not only criminal elements of Los Angeles but some celebrity-obsessed citizens to their cause. One of those is woman who appears to flash her breasts as sign of support. Johnson cuts the scene in a way that would make even the less experienced viewers aware that they are watching “safe” PG-13 rated action film or, in other words, Hollywood fantasy rather than slice of real life. That means that there is a lot of action and gunfire, but very little actual blood. Some of the action is spectacular yet less believable. Other flaws become apparent, like characters being too simple and stereotypical to be properly remembered, even when played by such iconic actors like Samuel L. Jackson or emerging stars like Colin Farrell and Michelle Rodriguez. To make things worse, S.W.A.T. looks quite aged because its script was apparently influenced by geopolitics. Choice of Frenchman as evil crime uber-lord might have been motivated with American displeasure with French refusal to join invasion of Iraq, which led to infamous “freedom fries” change of vocabulary and Hollywood’s brief experiment with replacing Russians with French as the main evildoers in their films. However, most of today’s viewers might not catch those details that make S.W.A.T. product of its time, but it won’t affect generally disappointing impression. In 2017 the original received another remake in form of another television series that remained on air for six seasons.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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