S.W.A.T.

Dir: Clark Johnson

2003

*

Before this Crocodile had his own blog he used to write reviews on a popular film review forum and on that forum I wrote a one word review of Clark Johnson's feature length TV adaption:

S.H.I.T.

It pulls no punches and tells it how it is but it's also a bit lazy, so I've decide to embellish (even though it's probably the best review I've ever written). The early 00's saw a whole flood of old TV shows remade into feature films, the studios believing it was what the audiences wanted while lazily picking out other people's thirty year old ideas and making them their own. S.W.A.T. was by far one of the worst examples of this. It doesn't even work as a guilty pleasure or an enjoyably mindless action film. Michael Bay, Rob Cohen, Antoine Fuqua, Michael Mann, Joel Schumacher, Tony Scott, Zack Snyder, Roger Spottiswoode, and John Woo all dropped out before TV director Clark Johnson was brought in. I'm not knocking Johnson's skill but he hasn't ready for big screen directing. The script was written with Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind for the lead roles but when none of them were interested, and Colin Farrell, Samuel L. Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez and LL Cool J were cast instead. Now I don't want to disrespect anyone, but you know something has gone wrong when Roger Spottiswoode turns you don't and when the closest actor you can get to Vin Diesel is LL Cool J. Oliver Martinez might be a bad guy in real life (how could he do that to poor Kylie) but on screen he's just a smarmy Frenchman, like that's all that is needed to be disliked in Columbia Pictures mind. Six people wrote the story and two separate people wrote the screenplay. Eight people and this is the best they came up with? David Ayer was one of those eight and I would argue that his input is most recognizable. I don't particularly like Ayer's work, I see nothing of value in it and I'm starting to wonder how on earth he's still getting work. Story aside, the acting is fairly awful too. I don't think the actors are to blame - although they should all have known better - but their scripts were all beyond awful. For a film that should be nothing but exciting none-stop action, it's a fairly dull 117 minutes. It's only saving grace is that it's forgettable, otherwise it would adorn many a 'worst' list I should imagine. It made a huge amount of money, so credit it to the studios, they did know how to peddle this rubbish, but I would argue that it was the big name stars that pulled in the punters and very little else. I'm not so sure it would make as much if it were made fifteen years later. I stand by my original review.