Formula works for 'S.W.A.T.'

Just once, it'd be nice to see a cop movie where the captain barking orders isn't barking orders. Where the uptight commander in his glassed-in office yawns and mutters "What the hey?" when confronted with the carnage wreaked on the streets by his maverick crew.

S.W.A.T. is not that movie.

A well-staged action procedural in which Special Weapons and Tactics hotshots in the LAPD break up a bank robbery, endure rigorous training exercises, barge in on homeowners, escort an international crime lord to prison, and take an unexpected ride on Los Angeles' subways, S.W.A.T. is by the numbers, by the book, and, by the way, pretty good.

Colin Farrell, fresh from The Recruit and arching his eyebrows with the same squirrely intensity, is Jim Street. A disgraced S.W.A.T. guy and former Navy SEAL, Street gets a chance to rejoin the elite group when a tough, "old school" sergeant, Dan "Hondo" Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson), is put in charge of a new team.

The first act of S.W.A.T. - which takes its inspiration, and its theme music, from the '70s TV series - tracks Street's fall and redemption, the departure of his blue-eyed girlfriend ("You've changed," she laments, one foot out the door), and the assembling of Hondo's squad.

Handpicking his gang, the sarge enlists a hard-boiled, up-from-South Central cop (LL Cool J); a rock-solid military type (Brian Van Holt); a cocksure marksman (Josh Charles); and a Latina fireball (Michelle Rodriguez, from Girlfight). While Jackson gets to say stuff like "set up a perimeter!" and nod approvingly, or scowl, at his unit, it's Farrell's Street who sees the tricks his colleagues miss, the trip-wire planted in the tunnel that the comrade in front of him is about to step on.

He's smart. You could call him Street smart.

S.W.A.T. has been 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). The movie establishes character traits and tics with a minimum of fuss, and the action - back-alley pursuits, Hollywood shoot-outs, a helicopter crash, an unorthodox Lear jet landing - is handled deftly.

While Jackson looks sage and stalwart, the legendary golf junkie does act as though he's got one eye on the green. And in a what-they-do-with-their-time-off montage that lasts all of maybe 40 seconds, the actor does get to whack one down a fairway. LL Cool J, a.k.a. James Todd Smith, is once again the picture of cool, and Rodriguez is a lot of fun as the swaggering distaff member of the bunch.

The major baddie in the too-long-by-15-minutes S.W.A.T. is a cold-blooded Frenchman: Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) comes to L.A. to jab a penknife into the jugular of his double-dealing uncle, and then gets pulled over by a motorcycle cop - for a traffic violation. Wanted by Interpol, the nabbed "frog" (as the SWATs like to call him) offers $100 million to anyone who can orchestrate his escape. Soon, every lowlife in L.A. is hatching a plan, and aiming a weapon, to free the prisoner.

And oh yes, there is a desk-bound captain (Larry Poindexter) who doesn't like what Hondo and his boys (and girl) are up to one bit. He yells. He threatens. He throws bureaucratic hissy fits. And out on the streets, the bullets fly.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

S.W.A.T. *** (out of four stars)

Produced by Neal H. Moritz and Dan Halsted, directed by Clark Johnson, written by David Ayer and David McKenna, photography by Gabriel Beristain, music by Elliot Goldenthal, distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 57 mins.

Street. . . Colin Farrell

Hondo. . . Samuel L. Jackson

Deke. . . LL Cool J

Sanchez. . . Michelle Rodriguez

T.J.. . . Josh Charles

Parent's guide: PG-13 (violence, profanity)

Playing at: area theaters