Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: S.W.A.T.

This is topic S.W.A.T. in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 08-08-2003, 06:11 AM:

Good. [thumbsup]

Michelle Rodriguez isn't super annoying for once!

Watch it in a theatre with a good sound system, in fact, watch all your movies in theatres with good sound systems.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 08-08-2003, 08:15 AM:

saw it in our House 4 (SDDS, biggest screen we have @ 463 seats) and it sounded great. I actually enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would, it was entertaining and the movie was generaly good. I give it 7 out of 10. A little fake here and there, but good...I forget which trailer it was (I'm thinking Texas Chainsaw Massacre) but they used a really nice Surround effect on it, really sweet

Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 08-08-2003, 08:57 PM:

I found it a complete waste of two hours. very predictable, lousy script, bad camera angles, extremely loud soundtrack, terrible acting jobs by most people in the film. Reel 1 had a nasty scratch appearing on and off of it.Reel 2 had a drastic color shift to it, very magenta tint. 45 minutes could have easily have been trimmed off of this piece of work. i'm glad that i screened it and didn't pay to see it.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 08-09-2003, 04:55 AM:

I thought it was a entertaining 2 hours. Sam Jackson did a good job as usual.

Presentation Wise: Once the feature started, it was pretty good. 6-7 ads were shown, and they were spliced in a funny way, a large white bar of light on the frameline and a very loud " pop " on almost every single splice. One trailer was excessively dirty but the odd thing about the dirt is that it was on the upper right area of the frame, and stayed there.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 08-10-2003, 05:31 AM:

Quite entertaining action movie. Of course, it had all the cliches ("he is a living legend in the force" "we are the most highly trained police unit in the country" blablabla), but it doesn`t ride them to death.
I would have liked the team finding section a little bit more extensive. That is always a nice feature in a movie ever since Kurosawa introduced it in "7 Samurai".
Surprisingly, there was no cheesy love story. Probably there was to be something happening between the Rodriguez and the main character, but it was cut, or his girlfriend came back, or something like that.
Anyway, there was even a little bit of originality in some scenes. I also found the sound mix very well done. Effects, music, good surround usage. I don`t understand the comment about the camera angles. Maybe you should check your projector alignment.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 08-10-2003, 10:51 AM:

I enjoyed this film a lot, much more than the ever so long Bad Boys 2. I liked the fact that they only gave a hint of interest between Farrell's and Rodriguez's characters. Things like that can slow things down if it gets to involved. I liked the story but I had one problem with the movie. The story was predictable from the get go. But, with this type of film that can happen. I did think the sound mix was a little hot. I had to adjust the volume down just a bit not much. The actual mix was well done. I give this film *** out of four stars.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-08-2003, 04:42 AM:

This was fun. Not especially original or memorable, but still worth two hours. Good sound mix, although I agree that it was loud. Nice-looking scope print (from digital intermediate), too.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-08-2003, 01:33 PM:

This is a movie I had low expectations for but enjoyed a lot. There weren't as many eye-rolling, "Yeah, RIGHT, like THAT'S possible" scenes in this one as there are in most action movies these days.

Posted by Stewart Anderson (Member # 1809) on 09-23-2003, 11:17 AM:

An old projectionist friend of mine noticed a similarity between S.W.A.T. and Pulp Fiction. Remember that scene near the beginning of Pulp Fiction where Samuel L. Jackson's character is quoting a bible scripture while the man he is holding a gun up to is just saying "what...what, what". Finally at the end of this scripture Samuel says "SAY WHAT AGAIN!!!". Now in S.W.A.T. ther is a scene after the attempted escape from the prison bus where they are arresting the bad guy and he attacks Colin Farrell's character; all the officers are yelling "DON'T MOVE, DON'T MOVE!!!!". That is when Samuel L. Jackson comes in and says "MOVE AGAIN!!!!".

It seems like we noticed another similarity, but it has been too long since I saw the film. That is why I can't remember the character names.

Posted by Jim Leko (Member # 1287) on 09-23-2003, 04:41 PM:

quote:
This is a movie I had low expectations for but enjoyed a lot. There weren't as many eye-rolling, "Yeah, RIGHT, like THAT'S possible" scenes in this one as there are in most action movies these days.

I agree. The only time I really questioned the possibility, was during the bridge scene, but even that I suppose is possible, if the bridge is wide enough.