Samuel L Jackson and Colin Farrell swagger through S.W.A.T., a guns-and-big-trucks macho extravaganza based on the 1970s TV show of the same name, in which police teams are brought in to take care of extremely dangerous situations. Jackson plays a sergeant brought out of retirement to form a new squad, which includes rebellious Farrell and tough babe Michelle Rodriguez.

After a lot of training and head-butting with a smarmy police captain, the squad gets assigned to transfer the head of a European crime cartel (Olivier Martinez) who's declared on television that he'll give $100 million to anyone who gets him out. Every scumbag in Los Angeles descends to claim the money, turning a routine transfer into a bullet-filled gauntlet. Despite some gaps in logic and a generic flavour, S.W.A.T. will satisfy most action-movie junkies. --Bret Fetzer

The film is awesome, would be much better if there were Clif-Hangers, but to sum up, I like the story. Good setting too.

and it doesn't disgrace the original tv series, unlike most.

I watched the original series when I was a child, it was shown late at night and I can vividly remember waking to the sound of the siren at the start of the show and by the time the theme music stopped I was dangling over the edge of the banister on the stairs, looking through the open door at the tv screen. Ah bliss.

Samuel L Jackson plays Lt (now Sgt) Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson (previously played by Steve Forrest, who makes a special guest appearance at the end of the film as the SWAT driver);

Colin Farrell plays Jim Street (who was played by the late great Robert Urich in the series);

Rod Perry makes a special guest appearance in the bar after the team successfully pass the course, his part of David Deacon 'Deke' Kay is played by LL Cool J aka James Todd Smith;

TJ McCabe (previously played by James Coleman) is now played by the very underrated Josh Charles;

The character of Dominic Luca (played by Mark Shera) has been made into 2 separate characters - Michael Boxer (played by Brian Van Holt) and Chris Sanchez (played by Michael Rodriguez). I found the Sanchez character unnecessary to the story.

For some strange reason Coleman and Shera are the only survivors from the original SWAT team not to be asked to appear in a blink and you'll miss them moment guest star moments. In fact Coleman comments on this on the review for the series box set on the amazon.com site. The series (for anyone who is interested is only available in the US on region 1, but it is not embedded so will play on my hp computer).

The plot is split into two main parts - Street's fall from grace when he follows friend and partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) into a hostage situation where orders are not followed and Gamble ends up shooting a hostage on live tv. Then there is Harrelson - Harrelson is old school and is brought in to set up his own SWAT team as a bit of good publicity for the LA police department. The trouble is that Harrelson and his boss (Capt Thomas Fuller - Larry Poindexter) have a past. It is this team development that takes up the first part of the film.

The second part of the film involves the discovery that the police have been holding the wanted head of a crime cartel called Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez). Harrelson and his newly formed SWAT team are assigned to transport the wanted man to Federal holdup add to this the fact that Alex offers 100 million dollars to anyone who can help him escape and so the fun starts.

I'll admit now that I am not a fan of either Farrell or Jackson but this is a film that I completely enjoyed, and I've watched it a number of times without tiring of it. A 5 star piece of escapism that may make me change my mind about Farrell and Jackson.

It's nice to see that we have a mass of extras with this dvd which makes a nice change.

After reading a few of the negative reviews on this film i decided to watch it myself and was pleasently suprised! A good film with some good action sequences!

This has some good moments, but not many. I was bored in a lot of it, but it has a couple of okay bits. Really bland though.

The first half of this film was good but the second half made my mind wander a bit. I got a bit bored to be honest. I liked the idea of the film, and i'm glad ive seen it but i wouldn't bother watching it again. Only key bit that makes a film like this bearable is having a talented actor like samuel l jackson in it!