Was SWAT a good or bad film? Hmm. It was not bad... but it wasn't great either. So I would say it was good. I had a problem with the plot twist in the final 40 minutes of the movie which takes the film in a completely new direction. To me it seemed a little bit like a combination of "Stakeout" (with Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfus) and "Nighthawks" (with Sylvester Stallone, etc.). Only both Stakeout and Nighthawks were better movies because SWAT just lacks a good plot. The SWAT plot is just too simple, and unbelievable towards the end.
But at least SWAT was much better than "Training Day" (with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke). If you've never seen Training Day don't bother... it's not pleasant to watch and some of its plot twists are even more implausible than the ones in SWAT...
As for actor Samuel L. Jackson, see him in The Negotiator, Switching Lanes, Die Hard III, or even Amos & Andrew. He puts in much better performances in each of these compared to SWAT.
If I didn't make any comparisons, however, then I guess SWAT makes for a decent action movie. I haven't seen so many bullets flying since "Black Hawk Down"... but fair warning... I would never, ever, ever recommend Black Hawk Down to anyone... It was beyond horribly violent... it had no plot at all!
One last observation about SWAT... the plane should have been allowed to take off, then monitored for where it lands so the occupants could be apprehended. It was too small a plane to fly all the to France from California, so a mid-Atlantic pick-up by the navy might have been sufficient. In any case, this would have been a much easier and less violent tactic than SWAT chose to follow in this film.
To summarize: I give SWAT a score of 7 out of 10. Now I'm just going to read a book and try and unwind after experiencing this rapid fire movie... it was two hours and 20,000 bullets too long!
But at least SWAT was much better than "Training Day" (with Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke). If you've never seen Training Day don't bother... it's not pleasant to watch and some of its plot twists are even more implausible than the ones in SWAT...
As for actor Samuel L. Jackson, see him in The Negotiator, Switching Lanes, Die Hard III, or even Amos & Andrew. He puts in much better performances in each of these compared to SWAT.
If I didn't make any comparisons, however, then I guess SWAT makes for a decent action movie. I haven't seen so many bullets flying since "Black Hawk Down"... but fair warning... I would never, ever, ever recommend Black Hawk Down to anyone... It was beyond horribly violent... it had no plot at all!
One last observation about SWAT... the plane should have been allowed to take off, then monitored for where it lands so the occupants could be apprehended. It was too small a plane to fly all the to France from California, so a mid-Atlantic pick-up by the navy might have been sufficient. In any case, this would have been a much easier and less violent tactic than SWAT chose to follow in this film.
To summarize: I give SWAT a score of 7 out of 10. Now I'm just going to read a book and try and unwind after experiencing this rapid fire movie... it was two hours and 20,000 bullets too long!