Deja Whaaaa? - So driving

Deja Whaaaa? - So driving down County B2 in Roseville last night past the Pavilion theatre, I saw a marquee for the movie...

...S.W.A.T?

SWAT? One of the worst TV shows of the seventies, even to my action-crazy 10-year-old mind? The show that launched Robert Urich? The show with the lead named "Hondo Harrelson", who led a pack of five misfit SWAT cops in a rolling fortress?

Then I read :Ebert's review:

"In a S.W.A.T. team training scene, the trainees are running toward a target while shooting, and somebody asks, 'No rolls?' The veteran cop in charge replies: 'They only roll in John Woo movies--not in real life.'

That's the point with 'S.W.A.T.' This isn't a John Woo movie, or 'Bad Boys 2,' or any of the other countless movies with wall-to-wall action and cardboard characters. It isn't exactly real life, either, and I have to admit some of the stunts and action scenes are a shade unlikely, but the movie's ambition is essentially to be the same kind of police movie they used to make before special effects upstaged human beings."

Hmmm. Good review. Can't be descended from the TV show.

But then...

The plot begins with a hostage situation gone wrong. A S.W.A.T. team member (Brian Gamble) disobeys orders, enters a bank and wounds a hostage. He and his partner Jim Street (Farrell) are offered demotions. Street accepts; his partner leaves the force. But Street, a talented officer and a great shot, is spotted by the legendary veteran Hondo Harrelson (Jackson), and chosen for his hand-picked elite S.W.A.T. team.

Oy vey.

Expect the Fantasy Island and Love Boat movies next.

And when they do the Caribe movie (followed SWAT on Tuesday nights when I was in sixth grade, starred Ricardo Montalban), give me a holler.

Posted by Mitch at August 14, 2003 05:57 PM