Review of S.W.A.T. (2003) by Tommy M — 04 Mar 2011

S.W.A.T. is not an awful movie. Its just that great. I give it a 40% not because it aimed low and hit low, but because it aimed medium, and hit low.

S.W.A.T. has adequate directing, a good cast, pretty good editing, and very good cinematography. So why is a bad film?

The script is absolutely terrible. S.W.A.T.'s script, written by four (yes, 4) semi-reliable writers, is truly awful. The plot is so insanely conventional, I wanted to groan every time that a plot "twist" occurred. If you can even call them twists.

S.W.A.T. follows the basic formula of every bad cop movie ever made. A good cop gets disgraced for disobeying orders, and gets a second chance as part of an elite team with a bunch of rookies. The "paper pushing" captain is always telling them they are doing the wrong thing, and always threatening everyone with being kicked off the force. 80% of all of the scenes in S.W.A.T. involve the lead characters bucking authority. It is mind-blowingly repetitive.

The plot does delivers one or two interesting surprises and scenarios that I hadn't seen before, but other than that, I'd seen everything before.

There was also a surprising amount of talking for an action movie. Or maybe it seemed like it because all the talking was either about girlfriend plots that didn't get fleshed out, or grudges against "the higher ups" or "the brass" being wrong. I got really damn sick of it.

And the dialogue, oh the dialogue... The lines in this film are absolutely miserable. The dialogue is so generic that its painful. Nobody talks as generic as these characters. Every single line is devoted to making the characters seem either "cool" or "down to earth". The movie fails less on the first count than it does on the second. None of the characters are remotely down to earth.

Even worse, the movie inserts inane and pointless "signpost" dialogue. This dialogue is inserted to help explain to the audience what is happening, clarify difficult to understand plot points, usually plot twists. But when the plot twists are as basic and uncomplicated as the ones in S.W.A.T, it is just insulting. You don't need multiple different lines dialogue to tell me about a traitor, if you've shown the person being a traitor clearly (its not a spoiler, its shown in the trailer). I get the point. No reason to treat me like a kid, especially when your script is as plain and generic as this one.

Back to the awful character writing...

The characters all have small back stories that are not remotely explored. We see girlfriends, wives, daughters, rivalries, but not one of relationships have any depth. The script spends the least amount of time possible on each relationship, leaving us wanting to know more, and leaving the characters feeling completely underdeveloped.

So how do the actors deal with this awful script? Quite well, actually. Samuel Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez, Colin Farrell and Jeremy Renner give the lead performances. Other actors have larger roles than Renner (like LL Cool J), but their acting is so dull that combined with the script, my mind just glassed over them. I'll just leave their acting description at "horrifyingly bad", and drop it there.

But Jackson, Rodriguez, Farrell,'and Renner all give good performances. Samuel Jackson has this innate and nearly inexplicable ability to make even the worst of dialogue sound okay. However, while Jackson makes the dialogue not miserable to your ears, he doesn't make it sound any less generic. Nobody can.

Colin Farrell has the "lead" role in the movie. Therefore he has the most screen time, and the story technically focuses mostly on him. He spends 90% of the movie drunk. Not the character, the actor. Colin Farrell admitted at the Academy Awards to being drunk during some of the filming, and it shows. Farrell can't seem to focus on anything. He delivers the lines in all seriousness, and fills the requirements, but by the end of the movie it is clear that Farrell clearly has no idea whats happening on the movie set. He is doing what the director is telling him to, and doing it with all his might. But his eyes are just empty. In a good way. Farrell has some "dramatic" scenes in the film with Renner, and he does what is expected of him. Staring seriously, looking away, yelling. All that "dramatic" stuff. Farrell isn't awful in the scenes, he's average, and to be fair, it would be hard for anyone to do anything with S.W.A.T.'s abysmal script.

Michelle Rodriguez plays her usual role. A badass chick in a man's world. She has the obligatory "surprise" introduction, where you expect a man but *gasp* its a woman! She spends most of the movie snarling at everyone but her daughter, and pulls off the minimal "dramatic" requirements of her one scene that is supposed to have emotional weight. Rodriguez gives off the same performance she always does, a good one. The role feels like it was written for her (maybe it was, I don't know), and she fills it perfectly. Michelle Rodriguez's character is one of the few I don't have many complaints about, especially because she seems to be less focused on complaining about "the brass" and more on actually doing stuff.

Finally, in the acting category, Jeremy Renner. Let me start off by saying that I watched S.W.A.T. on DVD for one reason. Jeremy Renner. After his fame explosion in "The Hurt Locker" and later in "The Town", I wanted to see one of his pre-fame movies. That, along with an interest in seeing Michelle Rodriguez shoot some people was why I watched S.W.A.T.. Jeremy Renner does not disappoint. He does his role well. He is clearly semi-drunk too, but its less obvious, because it kind of fits his eccentric character. Renner plays the same role in S.W.A.T. that he does in "The Town". The guy you love to hate. Renner is suitable to this eccentric villain role, taunting and clashing with Farrell. Most of the "dramatic" scenes in the film are between Renner and Farrell, and Renner does a good job with them. He isn't awesome, but he does what he can with the atrocious script, bringing the characters frustration and lunacy to a good level. Renner was as good as he could have been, and I liked him.

I know I said I was done with the script, but I have to double back. My problem with all the complaining about "the brass" and "Captain Fuller", the glory hound boss who inexplicably hates Samuel Jackson and semi-explicably hates Farrell. These characters are supposed to be hard-ass tough cops. Yet all they do, is bitch about "Captain Fuller". Or argue with Fuller. They just can't stop complaining and fussing about him. Now, I understand that everyone hates their boss, especially if he appears to be making bad decisions, but I don't spend all my time complaining about my boss. You'd think that such tough guys and gals wouldn't need to whine so much about their boss. Its hard to take these guys seriously when they can't seem to get past their issues with their boss. The movie theme about stupid commanding officers who get the field grunts into bad situations, forcing the grunts to disobey orders and save the day is so old. It has never been used in a more despicably boring and unwatchable way than in S.W.A.T. But enough about the script.

You probably want to know why I gave the film a 40%, and not a 20% or worse. I've barely said one good thing about the film, besides praising some of the actors. Well, here's why.

The editing, and cinematography of the action scenes.

S.W.A.T. may fail miserably at plot, drama, or logic, but it does not fail at providing good action sequences. The shoot outs, building assaults, and car chases are excellent. While they may be over the top, they are expertly done.

First, the editing. S.W.A.T. was edited by Michael Tronick, a respected editor of films like Predator, True Romance, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The editing in the action scenes is excellent. The editing is composed of lots of quick cuts, showing everything that is happening in the action scenes, some of which are quite expansive. However, the cutting is never so fast that the audience gets lost, I could follow the action well, while getting that sense of chaos. In the scenes which called for less chaotic editing, ones that called for suspense, and a build up, the editing was used well to cut between all the different actions, but once again was cut together in a way that I wasn't lost or disengaged from the scene.

The cinematography was also quite good. It wasn't stellar, but it was good. Often, the cinematographers of action films will go for over the top, "super cool", and unnecessarily skewed camera angles that do nothing more than confuse the viewer. Gabriel Beristain, who shot the film, reached a nice balance of interesting angles that also clearly showed the action. The film looked cool, while simultaneously staying on top of the action.

Finally, the directing. S.W.A.T. was directed by Clark Johnson, actor and television director. S.W.A.T. is the first and only feature film that he has directed (so far). It shows. It takes a good director to get average performances from bad actors, good performances from average actors, excellent performances from good actors, so on so forth. Johnson fails to do any of those. His actors all do what they can, and clearly weren't drawn out by the director. From watching this film, I get the feeling that Johnson told the actors where to stand, what to say, when, and not much else. He does better with the action scenes. The action scenes, as previously mentioned, are well done. I feel that this is mostly due to the editing more than anything else, but Johnson does seem to have done at least an adequate job in putting everything together. He gets a passing grade from me. Just barely.

Before I reach my conclusion, just one anecdote. My favorite part of the film is when a S.W.A.T. officer is messing with security camera videos, to redirect the feed for S.W.A.T. use. In case we can't tell what's going on by the dialogue telling us what's happening, the cable being inserted into the socket is labeled "S.W.A.T. Van". Literally. I actually laughed out loud. If the S.W.A.T. technical expert can't remember where his ONE cable goes, the one he just pulled out of the van, then something is seriously wrong with what the movie proclaims to be "The Best Police unit in the world".

Overall, S.W.A.T. is a bad movie. But I give it 40% because of the acting of Renner, Rodriguez, and Jackson, as well as the masterful editing and good cinematography.

S.W.A.T. wouldn't have lost so many points if I hadn't tried to actually be a good movie. If it hadn't tried to have a cool and exciting plot with snappy banter. But it did, and for that, its a bad movie. If you REALLY want to see this film, rent it, don't waste your money on buying it.