S.w.a.t Movies
Hadi Sapre
Half an hour into watching "S.W.A.T.," I realized the movie offered pleasures that action movies hardly ever allow themselves anymore: 1. The characters had dialogue and occupied a real plot, which involved their motivations and personalities.
I started taking notes along these lines, and here are a few of my jottings: When a cop shoots at a robber in a hostage situation, the hostage is wounded. The chief punishes two hot shots with demotions, instead of pulling their badges and guns and kicking them off the force. When the bad guy steals a cop car, we expect a chase, but he backs up and crashes it within a block. When the chase leads down to the Los Angeles subway system, the cops approach a stopped train, board it, and look for their quarry. Astonishingly, there is not a fight scene atop a speeding train. In a S.W.A.T. team training scene, the trainees are running toward a target while shooting, and somebody asks, "No rolls?" The veteran cop in charge replies: "They only roll in John Woo movies--not in real life." That's the point with "S.W.A.T." This isn't a John Woo movie, or "Bad Boys 2," or any of the other countless movies with wall-to-wall action and cardboard characters. It isn't exactly real life, either, and I have to admit some of the stunts and action scenes are a shade unlikely, but the movie's ambition is essentially to be the same kind of police movie they used to make before special effects upstaged human beings.
The result is one of the best cop thrillers since "Training Day." Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell co-star, playing the time-honored roles of veteran officer and young hothead. Michelle Rodriguez and James Todd Smith (a k a LL Cool J), both effective actors, give depth to the S.W.A.T. team. And Olivier Martinez, who played Diane Lane's lover in "Unfaithful," is the smirking playboy arms dealer who offers a $100 million reward to anyone who springs him from custody.
The plot begins with a hostage situation gone wrong. A S.W.A.T. team member (Brian Gamble) disobeys orders, enters a bank and wounds a hostage. He and his partner Jim Street (Farrell) are offered demotions. Street accepts; his partner leaves the force. But Street, a talented officer and a great shot, is spotted by the legendary veteran Hondo Harrelson (Jackson), and chosen for his hand-picked elite S.W.A.T. team.
One of the pleasures of the movie is the training sequence, where Jackson leads his team through physical and mental maneuvers. Many recent action movies have no training scenes because, frankly, you can't train to do their impossible stunts -- you need an animator to do them for you.
A routine traffic bust leads to the unexpected arrest of Alex (Olivier Martinez), an internationally wanted fugitive. Alex offers the $100 million reward on television, the cops assume there will be a lot of escape masterminds hoping to collect the reward, and it's up to Hondo and his team to safely escort the prisoner to a federal penitentiary.
That it does not go smoothly goes without saying. I'm not arguing that the last 45 minutes of the movie are, strictly speaking, likely or even plausible, but nothing violates the laws of physics, and you can kind of see how stuff like that might sort of happen, if you get my drift.
"S.W.A.T." is a well-made police thriller, nothing more. No Academy Awards. But in a time when so many action pictures are mindless assaults on the eyes, ears and intelligence, it works as superior craftsmanship. The director, Clark Johnson, is a veteran of TV both as an actor and director, and supplies a well-made film that trusts its story and actors. What a pleasure, after a summer of movies that merely wanted to make my head explode.
Jim Hemphill is the writer and director of the award-winning film The Trouble With the Truth, which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and other platforms. He has written about movies and television for Filmmaker magazine, American Cinematographer and Film Comment, and is the author of The Art and Craft of TV Directing: Conversations with Episodic Television Directors. He also serves as a film historian at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and has contributed audio commentaries to DVDs and Blu-rays for Indicator, Shout Factory, the BFI, and other home video labels. His website is www.jimhemphillfilms.com.
Audiences know Gabriel Macht as tenacious lawyer Harvey Specter on Suits. The series deservedly garnered the actor plenty of attention, because his performance combined with the sharp writing of Aaron Korsh to elevate Harvey beyond any other TV lawyer. Over nine seasons of Suits, viewers saw countless layers to him while he never stopped commanding a room. What viewers probably don't know is that just before Suits, Macht could've similarly catapulted the S.W.A.T. franchise.
In 2003, Columbia Pictures and Original Film adapted the 1970s TV show S.W.A.T. into a blockbuster motion picture starring Colin Farrell and a pre-MCU Samuel L. Jackson. It remains an incredibly underrated movie; it didn't reinvent the wheel, but it was a whole lot of fun and made better by the talents of the cast. So it seemed like a good idea when in 2011, Original Film came back with S.W.A.T.: Firefight, starring Macht as the new team leader. The sequel had every chance to succeed -- which makes it incredibly frustrating that it didn't.
While its predecessor boasted A-list stars, S.W.A.T. Firefight wasn't lagging behind in its casting -- it was full of recognizable names, even if they weren't as well-known as Michelle Rodriguez or future NCIS franchise star LL Cool J. Macht had already starred or co-starred in several high-profile films, including Whiteout, The Spirit and alongside Farrell in The Recruit. And to work opposite him, the producers landed movies' most iconic villain: Robert Patrick, who terrified a generation as the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. That matchup created the core of a good movie. Every hero needs an equally imposing villain, and Patrick had the gravity that Olivier Martinez's original villain Alex Montel had lacked. On top of that, Patrick and Macht's acting styles complemented each other; both can be intense, but Patrick could show that intensity in Hatch's aggressive behavior, while Macht was great at having Cutler hold that in and having it quietly build up inside the character.
However, the supporting cast didn't get nearly enough to go on. The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito ably fulfilled an underwritten role as the rigid Inspector Hollander while Nicholas Gonzalez, who'd later play The Good Doctor fan-favorite Neil Melendez, was boxed into the part of "skeptical team member who criticizes the hero." The 2003 S.W.A.T. film gave every character personality -- even director Clark Johnson's brief cameo as another cop and Larry Poindexter's smarmy Captain Ted Fuller. There were no small roles in that movie. But Firefight didn't flesh out anyone beyond Cutler and Hatch... and even that might've been acceptable if the movie had gotten out of Macht and Patrick's way.
In 2003, S.W.A.T. was full of fantastic action sequences from the beginning, including a nail-biting opening based on the 1997 North Hollywood bank shootout. However, it also played to its actors. Audiences saw how Jeremy Renner's Brian Gamble believably went from hero to villain, and supporting cast like the underappreciated Josh Charles had little scenes to give at least hints of what made their characters tick. (There was even an entire song on the soundtrack specifically called "Samuel Jackson" by Hot Action Cop.) Perhaps because Johnson is himself an actor, S.W.A.T. felt like the actors were essential to that movie. S.W.A.T.: Firefight had wonderful actors, but put the gunfights and explosions first.
There's something to be said for a good popcorn film, and something to be said for just watching two great actors share the screen. Gabriel Macht had the talent to develop Paul Cutler into more than a generic hero -- the first act quickly established his screen presence and ability to ground an action scene, as Cutler was thrown into a hostage situation involving Hatch and Hatch's ex-girlfriend. Even with all the yelling and the frenetic camera work, Macht gave the audience someone to focus on. From that scene forward, his portrayal gave Cutler actual depth... but the screenplay didn't. It forced him into an obligatory romantic relationship with the local psychiatrist (played by Carly Pope, who'd later recur as Louis Litt's girlfriend Tara on Suits) and that was the bulk of his character development. Macht gave much more than the screenplay did, so when his proactive acting was matched up with a great writer in Aaron Korsh, audiences saw exactly how talented he is.
Robert Patrick fared a little better, since the role of Walter Hatch was clearly intended as a scenery-chewing villain, and Patrick had already done so numerous times in his career (see: Double Dragon and the John Cena movie The Marine). He sunk his teeth into that role and was as ruthless and irredeemable as he was supposed to be. Watching his gregarious villain play off Macht's more tempered hero was incredibly fun and had an unpredictable energy. But their chemistry got lost in constant action beats. The original S.W.A.T. film worked because there was a clearly established backstory and a genuine rapport between Jim Street and Gamble -- and the crux of the movie drilled down to that and let the actors shine. In S.W.A.T.: Firefight, the action consumed any meaningful character interaction or emotional stakes. The resolution was only about winning or losing... and as action movies go, it still wasn't that exciting.
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