S.W.A.T.
Directed by Clark JohnsonEmbracing the format of the television series wholeheartedly, the 2003 cop film, S.W.A.T., which has been released by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment as a Widescreen Special Edition (00624, $29), has a totally loony narrative, but it is supported by some first class production values and performances, so its silliness never seems tiresome. Reminiscent in some ways of a western, Samuel L. Jackson stars as the veteran assigned to organize a fresh team of military-style policemen to be called upon for the roughest law enforcement assignments. Colin Farrell, Michelle Rodriguez and LL Cool J are among the enlistees, and Oliver Martinez is the primary villain, a French gangster being held in a Los Angeles jail and offering, on the TV, a fortune to anyone who can bust him out. Directed by Clark Johnson, the film has enough action and enjoyable character by-play to be a fully entertaining experience. There are plenty of more serious police movies around, and a few solidly dramatic comedies, but S.W.A.T. is unique in its ability to be absolutely ridiculous and totally straight at the same time. The TV show tried and failed miserably, but the entertaining film succeeds amazingly well by sustaining a breezy pace and taking everything at face value.
The letterboxing has an aspect ratio of about 2.4:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer looks fine, though there are one or two instances where contrasts are a little weak. The 5.1-channel Dolby Digital sound has plenty of separation effects when the action gets hot, and a reasonably decent punch. The 117-minute program has an alternate French audio track in 5.1 Dolby, optional English and French subtitles, filmographies for the four stars, a 3-minute blooper reel, a 5-minute piece on a climactic scene where a plane lands on a bridge, a 9-minute piece on the opening action sequence, a 7-minute retrospective look at the TV series that also plugs the boxed set DVD rather heavily, and a standard 22-minute production documentary. 8 minutes of deleted scenes are included, and while none of them belong in the film, there are some very nice moments, and a good bare chest shot of Cool J. Another segment is sort of confusingly laid out, but supplies a terrific 5-minute look at the film’s sound editing, a 7-minute look at the movie’s firearms (including demonstration sequences), and a chance to break apart and combine the sound effects on four different sequences.
There is a commentary that combines a group talk by the cast, including Jackson, Cool J and Rodriguez, with inserted comments by the director, Clark Johnson. We wish, however, that they had just let the cast have the whole track. Their talk has an enjoyable, party-like atmosphere, compensating in star power and infectious humor what it lacks in substance. Johnson has a few worthwhile details to share, but he does not speak extensively, and there are actually mild gaps where nobody talks at all.
The second track is more instructive. Four of the eight (or more) writers who worked on the project at various points in its development (they started in 1996), Ron Mita, Jim McClain, David Ayer and David McKenna, talk about the many changes the movie went through as the winds of corporate interest shifted this way and that. Some of the four had never met before sitting down for the talk, and they don’t go into the commentary intending to analyze the process of blockbuster screenwriting, but
it comes out that way nevertheless, and it is very entertaining and rewarding. “There came a time when they decided that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be ‘Hondo’ [the character now played by Jackson]. And that was when it was very ‘Hondo-centric.’ Obviously, it was all about Hondo. And, so the film got into what we called the ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger sweepstakes,’ where you basically had to wait for them to show it to Arnold, and then Arnold was going to do it. He ended up taking some other films.”
There are still a few slight gaps, but something interesting is always right around the bend. “The best way to get names for a character is like off of milk cartons. Missing people.” They laugh over some of the plot’s unlikelihoods, the cop movie clichés and the film’s other cinematic presumptions. They recommend reading scripts as the best way to master the craft of writing them, and they say that bad scripts are the best ones to study. “A script’s a really amazing document, when you think about it, because, you know, it’s the blueprint, it’s the vision for the movie, so it’s not just what your actors are saying, but it’s the locations, it encompasses set design, it’s a document that tens of millions are being spent on. And I’ve learned that you have to be really clear in your script because it goes out to your different department heads and if you’re not crystal clear about what’s going on you get just deluged with questions and issues. The more you have on the page, you know, it just helps everybody do their job.” And finally, they acknowledge the lowly status of their profession in the Hollywood pecking order. “A writer on a movie set is like a hooker hanging around the next day.”
The Review Vault
The Best of 2003
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