I'm not really a fan of big budget, formulaic action peaces, I mean I fail to see the point of re-telling the same shallow story hundreds of times over, yet I had heard a few good things about Director Clark Johnson's (His first directorial film, but he has worked on TV shows such as NYPD Blue) Swat. Yes it's formulaic, unoriginal and your typical big budget nonsense, but for some reason I actually liked it this time. Go figure.
Of course there can be no denying that the storyline to Swat remains incredibly formulaic, and so my enjoyment was slightly diminished by the fact that I knew everything that would happen before I'd even purchased my ticket. The story opens with a hostage situation in a bank, and 2 Swat members Gamble and Street (Colin Farrell) are ordered to hold their positions, but decide to ignore orders. They save the day with 0 casualties and become heroes, but then get fired as the superiors consider Gamble to be a loose cannon. Street is kept on the force in a menial job until 6 months later Sgt. Hondo (Sam Jackson) is setting up an elite swat team and guess who catches his eye. Eventually this team is required to escort a drugs kingpin who offers $100,000,000 to his rescuer, and guess who's Ex-partner decides to apply.
The thing is though, that Swat manages to overcome the tedium inerrant in these films with some spectacular action scenes, (I know, this is something they all claim.) The opening sequence in the bank, and a training scene set on a fake plane are suspensefully handled, and look like a Tom Clancy anti terrorist novel come to life. (Obviously Jack Ryan is more spy than anti terrorist.) Yet other than these 2 scenes, the more traditional Big Boom variety of action scenes still managed to be impressive. Johnson has managed the transition from TV to action film well, showing a visual flare for choreographing an action scene to rival Michael Bay, but managing to keep the camera at a decent pace so that you can take in the full effect.
Of course action means nothing in a movie like this if the heroes don't work, and thankfully the cast of Swat reads like a who's who of cool. LL Cool J plays Deke and leaves his spiritual side in the locker room. He's the same cool cat that Cool J likes to play, but doesn't once interrupt this with meditation. Michelle Rodriguez plays Chris Sanchez, another of her hard as nails no nonsense characters, and again she has a mean scowl that few can match. As the instructor Hondo Sam Jackson plays a cool, no nonsense cop in the Shaft variety and again has a near unmatched screen presence. It's Farrell who gets the most attention though, and he manages to do the spotlight justice. He's a charismatic star, with enough screen presence to make this work while still remembering to give a solid performance in even this most overblown of spectacles.
My only problem with the cast was the very bland Larry Poindexter who plays the least memorable captain in cop movie history. A quick look over his biography reveals a long list of made for cable drama's, soft porn movies and Television shows. Needless to say both his acting ability and his screen presence betray this history, as their is absolutely nothing in his performance. He doesn't get across the character's frustrations, and certainly doesn't over play them enough for what the film requires. In the end he made the character dull instead of funny.
That lack of comic relief from the captain hurts the film, but doesn't kill it because the charismatic stars and well choreographed action are combined with a pumping soundtrack for a film that can truthfully claim to be formulaic, but fun. I'm as surprised as you are!
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