If you're of a certain age, you'll remember the '70s TV cop drama that has inspired the big screen version of S.W.A.T. starring Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell.
If you're not, maybe you've seen the show in reruns or heard the series' enduring theme song over the years?
Am I running out of possibilities?
Whatever your knowledge or experience, there's something inherently exciting and heroic about the Special Weapons And Tactics Team and the training and weapons associated with it.
"You're either S.W.A.T. or you're not," as cooler-than-cool Sergeant Dan "Hondo" Harrelson (Jackson) declares to outcast S.W.A.T. member Jim Street (Farrell).
Four characters' names from the TV series are revived for the movie -- Hondo, Street, T.J.McCabe and Deke -- while Steve Forrest, who played Hondo on the TV show, plays a S.W.A.T. truck driver in the film.
And who better to make a movie about these elite crime-fighters than director Clark Johnson, the sometime Toronto-based actor previously known for his fine work in the top cop TV drama Homicide: Life On The Streets.
More recently, Clark has gone behind the camera to direct episodes of Homicide, The Shield, NYPD Blue, Third Watch, City Of Angels, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
In other words, Clark knows this millieu and S.W.A.T. hits the ground running as Farrell's character and his partner Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) are caught up in a volatile hostage-taking incident during a bank robbery.
When their movements are questioned by their superiors and they are demoted, the partners split up.
It's only when Street is chosen by Hondo to rejoin S.W.A.T. -- along with LL Cool J, billed here as James Todd Smith -- and the hard-bodied Michelle Rodriguez (The Fast And The Furious, Girlfight) as new recruits, that redemption becomes a possibility.
Complicating matters is French crime lord Alex Mondel, who is arrested in Los Angeles and offers $100 million to anyone who can free him from police custody, and all hell breaks loose.
Unfortunately, Oliver Martinez (Unfaithful) as Mondel isn't given much to do other than sneer.
At least he could have been made funny. Intead, he comes across as a bit of a drip -- even when he's killing someone.
Still, the film's chase and gunplay scenes are action-packed and are executed as realistically as possible in L.A.'s streets, subway system, storm drains, train tracks and bridges, while the soundtrack, including the Rolling Stones' Shattered and Sam Roberts' Brother Down, is utilitzed to great effect.
Even if, as the movie progresses, there are some minor pacing problems, S.W.A.T. ultimately is satisfying.
And you'll probably leave the theatre singing that theme song.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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