S.W.A.T.

S.W.A.T. stands for Special Weapons and Tactics. It's okay if you didn't already know...the movie reminds you every 15-30 minutes. The first time someone recites the definition as if he's reading it verbatim out of a dictionary, followed by umpteen camera shots of vans and cars plastered with the phrase...just in case you're a visual learner.

For a movie that really talks down to its audience, S.W.A.T. doesn't have anything particularly sophisticated to offer. Based on a cheesy 70s TV show, the result is a predictably cheesy mishmash of every overdone element known to the cop thriller genre.

The movie opens with the Los Angeles Police Department's S.W.A.T. unit in the midst of trying to prevent a fatal hostage situation at a bank. Jim Street (Colin Ferrell) argues with his partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) because they were ordered to hold their position, but Gamble insists on moving ahead, accidentally wounding a hostage. This causes their police chief, who of course already has a beef with them, to threaten demotions which Street accepts while Gamble resigns.

Shortly following, legendary S.W.A.T. leader Hondo Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) shows up to hand-pick his own team. As if he's not going to choose Street, the movie teases us anyway as the two go around town to pick up the rest of the team including Deacon Kaye (LL Cool J), Michael Boxer (Brian Van Holt), Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) and T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles).

With the exception of Rodriguez, the rest of the team really does not get much screen time. Sure, they're there to razz each other here and there, but for the most part the focus switches to a stereotypical French baddie who steps in front of television cameras to offer $100 million to anyone who can help set him free from prison. Let's just say a few people take him up on the offer.
There are car chases, a helicopter blowing up, a captured subway train, random shootouts, airplanes landing on highways...you know, the stuff that real cops deal with (in the movies at least). Nothing is new or even interesting, not even the big budget actors that are running around all over town trying to bring down the bad guys. They tried to make us care about their characters...Rodriguez plays a tough single mother, Ferrell's girlfriend left him because he has commitment issues, and LL Cool J is a family man with two sons...but over an hour into the plot, it's too little too late for most of them. Most of the performances were good, but the script was atrocious. Someone managed to pack every bit of slang from the past five years into it, upping the cheese factor 95 percent. For the most part it was a waste of the talent they recruited. The actors did what they could but overall the performances were stiff, as was the finale.

S.W.A.T. is nothing to celebrate. It delivers a lot of action and very little suspense. At least it does so tastefully, which is more than I can say for those other Bad Boys of summer.