Ray Pride

I never thought I'd live to see the day when thrills in a studio movie would come from sheer competence.

The offhanded glories of a movie like, say, Walter Hill's "Long Riders" caught at an early morning showing at the Loop's defunct United Artists, seem a distant memory. Still, genre work is not dead, and I'm pretty sure it was more than the 10am screening with a fistful of Dr. Pepper that made "S.W.A.T." such authentic fun.

Reluctantly looking over the list of movies I've seen outside of film festivals since the start of the year, I've found more titles than not of movies I never care to see even a frame of again. Who's got the miscalibrated meds, you have to wonder: the executives at the top of the media pyramid, or audiences who are shocked giddy-senseless when something remarkable like "Finding Nemo" finds its way to shore?

A shaggy-dog shambles like "Hollywood Homicide" has its vagrant charm; a neutron bomb like "Gigli"--when it goes off, everything goes down but the stars' salary quotes--makes you wonder if anyone way up top of the industry really knows what movies once looked like, and what life looks like outside of the Town Car. A director I interviewed this week told me about a recent insulting meeting with a studio executive; the director said laughter was the only proper response, followed by, "Do you think I've never been insulted before?"

No, he doesn't know; he only greenlights a series of compromises that serve to sate the maw of the theatrical-overseas-DVD-pay-per-view-cable-basic-cable pipeline. Movies like "Hulk" are misshapen for other reasons: Universal "couldn't" preview the picture before audiences to gauge their reaction because of potential bad, pseudonymous-signed reviews that wind up on the likes of Ain't It Cool News. Result: ambitious yet slack movie that could have benefited from a few extra sets of eyes. (And still, "Hulk" was victim to one of the nastier, stupider piratings of the year.)

"S.W.A.T." sounds like a rotten idea: a "remake" of a shabby television series that hardly anyone recalls with any particular affection. Yet "S.W.A.T." is gratifying from the opening shot, which zooms into and beyond the Hollywood sign with a flotilla of helicopters, blending the impact of the first few seconds of "Star Wars," "Blade Runner" and the ending of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Charisma." Enter Colin Farrell in a `copter, looking like he's digesting a glass of milk. A bank is being attacked by suicidal if well-financed dumbasses; enter the commando coppers.

Clark Johnson shows himself not just as a director to watch, but someone whose movies move. Johnson's television background, which includes directing episodes of F/X's "The Shield" and HBO's "The Wire" and "Boycott," which he also starred in, brings so much to "S.W.A.T." Everything said about the maturity of television versus what we cavalierly call "contemporary American cinema" is on screen, plus an uncommon attention to performance. Johnson shoots in a kinetic fashion that must have driven the accountants mad, working with a sweet surfeit of coverage, cameras in unexpected places, booming up and down, rushing forward or back, editing for maximum impact. It's a focused version of the incoherent energy of John Moore's "Behind Enemy Lines." Johnson knows how to utilize the moving camera, unlike say, Michael Bay, who pretty consistently swoops laterally, Steadicam-ing to the left, low and fast. The production design is rich without becoming distracting, with graceful detailing in almost every frame.

But that is look and pace. The actors aren't just having fun, they're doing topnotch work without too much of a wink. Farrell seems the best he's been, truly holding the screen; when he's paired later with old-school S.W.A.T.-Yoda Samuel L. Jackson, even Jackson's performance is rich without becoming risible. Among other team members, LL Cool J impresses; Olivier Martinez makes for a swell pretty-boy antagonist; and Michelle Rodriguez... The camera loves her. Why don't more casting directors? What Johnson gets out of her in reaction shots is terrific, underlining that she is a hardcore screen-stealing cholita goddess. There's a scene where she enters a room and seeing a three-way testosterone tangle in progress, and she reacts with a slightly skeptical yet still amused raise of the eyebrow.

The script credited to David Ayer ("Training Day") and David McKenna ("American History X") sets rules so that even the most implausible of turns--a Lear Jet landing on the deco Sixth Avenue Bridge in downtown Los Angeles? --is worked through in a satisfying way. The action is exquisitely calibrated, but throughout, Johnson knows that genre is not junk to be condescended to, it is a series of variations on themes and figures.

There's always a line of bull in interviews and press kits about "y'know, the city was another character in our movie"--Martin Brest made said claim about the drab, darting "Gigli"--but Johnson, in his own impatient fashion, is just as gifted at capturing Los Angeles' grit and glitter as Michael Mann in movies such as "Heat." Dawn, day, night, actual locations, studied interiors, street scenes. "S.W.A.T." talks the talk, and "S.W.A.T." walks the walk.

"S.W.A.T." opens Friday. (2003-08-05)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
Sam Green and Bill Siegel's "The Weather Underground" is an impressively sturdy documentary about a difficult-to-master slice of American history, a sweet rebuke to the narcissism-as-entertainment wing of contemporary documentary practice
(2003-07-30)

The Oh No show
Martin Brest's new movie is "Gigli," which is like "Heaven's Gate," but with fewer horses.
(2003-07-30)

Short Runs
This week's limited screenings
(2003-07-30)

Tip of the Week
When will the coming-of-age film come of age?
(2003-07-23)

Leaving Navy Pier
(2003-07-23)

Extras, extras
(2003-07-23)

Short Runs
(2003-07-23)

Tip of the Week
(2003-07-16)

Short Runs
(2003-07-16)

Michael Bay: Reloaded
(2003-07-16)

Text and texture
(2003-07-16)

Tip of the Week
(2003-07-09)

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