Movie Review – S.W.A.T.

The Plot – Collin Farrell is Jim Street, once the top of a local S.W.A.T. team demoted to office duty in “The Cage” as an inventory clerk due to the actions of his former partner Brian Gamble. Street gets his second chance when he’s recruited by Hondo (played by Samuel Jackson) a S.W.A.T. legend who’s been tasked with putting together a top rated team. Shortly after the team is assembled & trained they’re tasked with their first mission. They must transfer a notorious drug czar to the Feds. That wouldn’t be so difficult if the city wasn’t driven into chaos by the kingpin’s offering of $100 million to the person who can set him free. Amidst the car chases and gun battles, the S.W.A.T. team quickly learns the influence of money and that anybody can be bought for the right price.

The Review – I’m always excited to see new films as sequels, remakes and the like have certain expectations you can’t escape. S.W.A.T. succeeds as a high energy action flick. The film kicks off with a bank robbery gone bad and while it downshifts immediately to subplots and character background once we meet the new recruits it’s non-stop chase the bad guy.

The cast choices were a good fit for this film. Collin Farrell is one lucky SOB, first he’s cast with Al Pacino and now Samuel Jackson. It’s nice to see LL Cool J get thrown more lines than usual as he could use a step up from the supporting cast role. Mich3lle Rodriguez will forever be typecast it seems, but I’m all about tough chicks.

<off topic> – Speaking of tough chicks, it was nice to see Ashley Scott for a brief moment. I was hoping Birds of Prey would find better writers so I had my Buffy replacement for the Fall season.</off topic>

The only downside to this film is its predictability. Action film yes, suspense film no. If you’re someone who will be easily disappointed because you know everything that’s going to happen in the first 20 minutes then you might hesitate a little. For me, this film succeeds as the dialogue fits the characters, the characters are interesting enough to move the plot along and generally speaking heroes have more appeal when they are flawed.

Grade: A (Next to Pirates of the Caribbean this is the second best film of the summer)