S.W.A.T. film review

certificate_12A

S.W.A.T.

S.W.A.T. stands for Special Weapons And Tactics, though a more suitable (if grammatically unsound) definition of the acronym is Stupid Waste A Time. The antics of the Los Angeles Police Department have notoriously stretched the bounds of credulity, but even at their most outlandish it's impossible to conceive of them being involved in anything as absurd as the events depicted in S.W.A.T..

S.W.A.T. is based on the 70's TV series so the choice of director Clark Johnson, who has established his reputation through his work on such gritty TV cop dramas as Homicide and

Things begin dramatically and all too realistically with a bank raid involving a brazen gun battle which more than closely resembles a notorious 1997 event in Los Angeles. The siege is ended by a couple of cocky S.W.A.T. officers, Jim Street (Colin Farrell) and his partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner), who defy orders. Their disobedience gets Gamble kicked off the force and Street transferred from his beloved S.W.A.T. job.

Six months later the wily "old school S.W.A.T." veteran, Hondo (Samuel L Jackson), is putting together a crack new team. His recruits include the sour Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez), joker Deke Kay (LL Cool Jay) and Street, who gets a second chance over the wishes of his boss. The training sequences at "S.W.A.T school" are amongst the film's most effective and amusing. It's when they finally get called into action that proceedings part company with reality.

An internationally wanted fugitive Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) is captured and offers a $100m reward to anyone who will spring him from custody. Hondo's team are brought in to transport him to the federal authorities, but every crackpot, gang member, opportunist and renegade cop hatch up increasingly ludicrous and audacious plans to liberate Montel and claim the reward.

S.W.A.T. boasts a strong cast and the potential to offer, if nothing original, at least an engaging distraction, but its lapses into the realms of the ridiculous prompt the alternative interpretation of its title.