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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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S.W.A.T.
Widescreen
Special Edition
(Columbia TriStar Home
Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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December
30, 2003
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Length:
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117 mins.
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| Rated:
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14A
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| Format:
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Widescreen (2.35:1/16x9)
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Audio:
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English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1
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| Subtitles:
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English, French, Closed-Captioned
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| Extras:
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8
Deleted Scenes, Blooper Reel, 2 Commentaries, Anatomy of a
Shootout Featurette, S.W.A.T.: TV's Original Super Cops, 6th
Street Bridge Featurette, Filmographies, Sound & Fury:
"The Sounds of S.W.A.T." Interactive Feature, The
Making of S.W.A.T. Featurette
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SWAT is inspired by the 1970's TV show
of the same name that was canceled after a short run due to a clamp
down on TV violence. The theme song and the characters' names in the
movie are taken from the TV show but the plot is not. From what little
I've seen of this show it is utter cheese - one of those shows that
you would love as a kid but then see again as an adult and wonder what
the hell you liked so much about it. (For me the A-Team fills this
role.)
Briefly, the movie is about a SWAT team in Los Angeles who is
responsible for transporting and protecting an infamous criminal who
has recently been captured. As he is being lead to jail there are news
cameras there to report and document the event and as he is passing by
he yells that he will give 100 million dollars to anyone who can break
him out of jail. The rest of the movie is about a bunch of people who
try and one such group who nearly succeed. The movie has an awesome
opening based on the true events of the North Hollywood bank robbery
in the mid 90's. It is filmed from the perspective of a news camera
man and it is very well done. It's actually the best part of the
movie.
Besides the opening scene this movie is not very good. The dialogue is
hokey and boring. There are scenes (like one with a tattooed midget
reporter) that have no real purpose and seem to be included for no
reason at all. The acting is good and mostly everyone in the movie is
a good actor - Colin Farrell and Samuel L. Jackson in particular. The
plot is a bit thin and should have played more off of the opening
scene instead of ignoring it (the movie should have been about the
true events leading up to, and including the opening shootout).
Overall, I didn't like the movie very much and wouldn't recommend
buying it on DVD.
There are quite a few special features on this disc. There are 8
deleted scenes that the director was right to cut because they aren't
very good. There's a feature called Anatomy of a Shootout that
describes the making of the opening scene which is pretty interesting.
Another feature called SWAT: TV's Original Supercops that describes
how the movie is based on the old TV show and gives some background
and foundation for the movie. There is a documentary on the making of
SWAT which I didn't watch but is probably like all "Making
Of..." documentaries. Since I wasn't interested in the movie I
didn't see how watching the making of it would be very interesting
either.
Finally there are two commentaries. The first is with the director and
the actors minus Colin Farrell, who I guess he's too good for the
commentary part. I found it kind of boring. It said it was with the
director and the actors which lead me to believe that they were all
together, but while you're watching it seems as though they took two
commentaries and edited it to make one because at one point the
director is talking about Samuel Jackson in the third person as if he
weren't right beside him and Jackson makes no response. Strange. Every
so often the actors will crack a joke but really they don't say much
of anything.
The is a also another commentary with the screen writers and the
technical advisor. The second commentary is pretty good. The screen
writers talk about how they wrote the script, and that while they were
writing it, the North Hollywood shootout happened. They explain that
they recorded the footage and edited it with the SWAT theme song over
top and sent it to movie executives as there demo if you will.
Throughout the commentary they discuss how they became screen writers
and comment on different points in the film where things were done
differently and how they worked with the actors to write dialogue and
their experiences with other films (specifically one of them talks
about working with Ed Norton on American History X). I found this
commentary quite interesting and would have preferred to watch it
instead of the movie. Overall the commentaries are very good and worth
the money for the disc.
If you like this movie you should love the special features. I didn't
like the movie and I still liked the extras.
| The
Movie: |
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5/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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8/10 |
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| Recommendation: |
Rent
This One |
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did you think?
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Betelguise - Contributor
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