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S.W.A.T.
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Entertainment / Columbia Pictures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 28 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
David Ayer
David McKenna
Robert Hamner (characters)
Ron Mita (story) and Jim McClain (story)
Directed by: Clark Johnson
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 8, 2003
DVD: December 30, 2003
Running Time: 117 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for violence, language and sexual references
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Renner, Michelle Rodriguez, LL Cool J, and Olivier Martinez
Based on the 70's television series of the same name, this film focuses on the Los Angeles Police Department's S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons and Tactics) unit.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: The Sentinel
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Film Threat Kevin Carr
One of those guilty pleasures of the summer. Its also one of those action movies that could have been ruined if Jerry Bruckheimer had taken charge of it.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
As the team leader, Jackson finds exactly the right tone for the role: a sort of playful cockiness that comes from knowing just how good he is. He's clearly having fun, but he never winks at the audience too much or allows his performance to devolve into camp.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
One of the best cop thrillers since "Training Day."
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Aware of its own cuteness because the dialogue plays by the rules of meta-entertainment.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Directed by Clark Johnson in an efficient and occasionally exhilarating style that points to the Emmy-winner's TV cop-show pedigree ("Homicide," "The Wire," "NYPD Blue").
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
While the movie is stupid, it is -- hooray, and let's put this in all the national ads! -- not appallingly stupid.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Offers up the kind of pleasures that only a summer movie can...The cast is good-looking, the soundtrack is loud, the plot is stupid.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The standout in the cast is James Todd Smith, whose acting talent may soon persuade him to shed his adolescent stage name of LL Cool J and concentrate on mainstream film roles.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The strongest parts of the film aren't these money shots, but the buildup to the gunplay.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
A thoroughly unremarkable police action movie starring the magnetic Samuel L. Jackson.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
As summer shoot-'em-ups go, this is pretty well executed, with plenty of macho posing and gunfire.
Read Full Review >Empire Alan Morrison
Formula is now the name of the game, although a steady diet of stunts and shootouts ensures that the audience is never bored.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
S.W.A.T. boasts the kernel of a good idea - but it gets buried in the chaff of half-baked plot threads, partly realized characters and unstructured pandemonium.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
By the time you've given up guessing whether S.W.A.T. wants to be a half-serious action pic or just affably jokey, its storytelling has turned so ludicrously melodramatic that it doesn't matter.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Though the film's second half has some good action moments, it never fulfills the promise of its earliest scenes.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Likely won't please fans of the original TV series, but the movie hasn't been made for them.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
What we have here is a model for the paint-by-numbers, perfectly generic, proudly soulless summer action flick. An original idea would die for lack of oxygen in S.W.A.T.
Read Full Review >Variety Robert Koehler
Coming in the wake of the physically astonishing "Bad Boys 2," S.W.A.T. seems square.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Actor-turned-director Clark Johnson uses the flashy, up-to-the-minute editing and camera stunts action fans expect, but keeps the mayhem on a recognizably human scale it's big, but not insanely overblown.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
There is something sneakily gratifying about all this: Not since the days of "Earthquake" have Hollywood producers so indulged their fantasies of trashing the town.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Those who love police overkill, guns, jingoistic race-baiting, guns, macho smugness, and guns will be well served.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's just one more competent but routine, midlevel ($70 million) late-summer action movie filled with the usual explosions, shootouts and male bonding.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
I was all revved up to have a whale of a fascist good time, and S.W.A.T. left me let down and pissed-off.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Technically clever but emotionally bankrupt...it's an almost laughably opportunistic movie.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
A compendium of missed opportunities, uninspired action and clichés so tired, you wish the screenwriters had called 911, too.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
S.W.A.T. may be an acronym for Special Weapons and Tactics, but by the end of this routine melodrama, it might as well stand for Standard Whacking and Trashing.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
Lots of buildings and cars explode, but there isn't a spark between any of the characters.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Surely something more original than this could have been mined from the history of North Americas largest and most professional police force. As it is, though, Johnsons film is just firing blanks.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
SWAT is better than "Gigli," but so is most outpatient surgery.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Seems best suited to all the couch-potato swinging dicks who get off watching the police on "Cops" keep the public safe from people in possession of marijuana.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Looks like the deformed spawn of a development process gone awry.
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
A prototypical new-millennium summer movie, S.W.A.T. is no more than an extended trailer for itself.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 28 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Anson G. gave it a2:
Very poor movie. It was too long to start the real action at the end. The previous chapter was nothing, absolute awful. I was bored of the major action scenes. i would rather take a nap for an hours and watch other action. S.W.A.T is rental.
Gino E. gave it a 3:
S.W.A.T. is suppost to be an action movie.. But where is all the action? Especially at the end, where you really wait for something to happen, but it never does. The rest of it are just senseless scenes that have nothing to to with anything. This is what all of the action films are these days, but at least there is some firework in them. Not in this one though... And the French villain is awful... I truly hope they don't come up with a sequel.
OJ S. gave it a 10:
Definitely 1 of the best movie I have ever seen. it deserves lot more then a f*(**) 44. This movie was great and if u havent seen it watch it. you will c.
Melissa gave it a 4:
Yuck. Even taken for what it is, an action movie, no need for plot, the action sequences were haphazard, the special effects poor, and too many action sequences were way too dark to see what was going on. 4th rate, all the way.
Harold H. gave it a 9:
Loved it! Good, pure action from start to finish. Great additional information on the DVD in addition to the movie. Pure action entertainment.
Alan G. gave it a 9:
Very good, who cares what others think.
Bit Burn gave it a 5:
Well, if you have nothing else to do and you saw every one of the 950000 movies at your local video store then you might find this movie amusing enough to keep you awake for the evening! Seriously, it's an "ok" flick.
