Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The![]()
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The![]()
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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.
