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MOVIES ON THE BRAIN: “S.W.A.T.”

By Chris Thilk | February 8, 2004

How do I feel about Colin Farrell? That depends on what day it is. On some days I think he’s a hack pretty-boy who deserves every venereal disease he gets from Tara Reid. On others I think he’s a pretty good actor who, if nothing else, has made some interesting choices in the roles that he takes. This is also the opinion I have of Samuel L. Jackson. Just when I think he’s starting to get some good roles under his belt, he’ll do something like XxX. The less said there the better.

00:01 – For me, the ultimate cop movie has still got to be “Dragnet.” I’m talking the one with Tom Hanks, Dan Ackroyd and “The Virgin Connie Swail”. “Look out. Muppets.”

00:03 – Did anyone else love the guns and other accessories G.I. Joe figures came with? The all time treasure-trove for me were the separate packs you could buy of guns, backpacks and various tools. These were especially useful since inevitably the guns that had actually come with the figures would get lost. I was always asking for…OK now I’m rambling.

00:08 – It must be great to be a movie studio executive and get to live out all your dreams of sleeping with gorgeous women and being the lone wolf policeman who breaks the rules, but gets the crooks. I imagine they get the same sense of escapism from making these movies that most people get by seeing them.

00:08 – It’s Dan Rydell! Thank God for DVD that I now own the complete series of “Sports Night”. I dug this show from the first episode. “At this point, the length of this conversation is way out of proportion with my interest in it.”

00:10 – How many times has “Top Gun” been rehashed? For the purposes of this conversation, please exclude the number of times Tom Cruise and/or Tony Scott themselves have been the rehashers.

00:13 – Wow. What a plot twist. The leading man becomes estranged from his longtime partner officer at the beginning of the movie. I do so ever wonder if this will come back to bite him in the a*s in the last 45 minutes of the movie.

00:14 – Am I the only person who actually liked “Contact”? Yeah, all right.

00:16 – Samuel L. Jackson has now added the character Hondo to his resume along side Mace, Zeus, Romulus and Jules. Shouldn’t he have right of refusal over the name of any character he agrees to play? Goodness man, throw around the little bit of clout you may have accumulated and play a character not named Hondo. Sounds like a rash you get after riding horses too long.

00:17 – One of my all time favorite performances is Jeff Goldblum in “Deep Cover.” Playing a bad guy is really something he should do more often.

00:21 – All the characters are standing on an open-air firing range and I just keep waiting for John Larroquette to come by and demand Colin Farrell fire a mortar without coordinates.

00:23 – Is this guy going to be arrested for being French? Because that’s all right with me. He’d probably surrender fairly quickly.

00:25 – Samuel L. Jackson is listing his combat experience in Vietnam but he omits the Geonesis campaign. You’d think fighting alongside someone like Yoda would have made more of an impression. Then again, he’s probably a prick (Yoda, not Sam L.).

00:27 – For some ungodly reason Joel Schumacher and Gus Van Sant are interconnected in my mind. I think it’s that I saw “Batman & Robin” and “Good Will Hunting” fairly close together. Even so, I feel like I should write Van Sant an apology every time I connect the two.

00:30 – Sorry, but you can’t do an “assembling the team” sequence without my waiting for Sean Connery to pop out and tell us they don’t need any thieving wops on the team.

00:33 – They keep showing shots of police motorcycles like this and I’m going to turn off the movie and find a CHiPs marathon on TNT or something.

00:35 – The captain just said, “Do you feel me?” Do you feel me? Come on. This is not a Pete Townsend rock-opera. If someone were to ask me, “Do you feel me?” I…well, I think my reaction would be deemed unsuitable by most state and local authorities. How did the screenwriter think this was a memorable line of dialogue? “Do you feel me?”

00:38 – “I bet these cops got SCMODS.”

00:40 – I think Colin Farrell is fighting with the other guy over who hated LL Cool J’s sitcom more. Might turn out to be a draw.

00:42 – Hell hath no fury like the Training Montage. That’s all.

00:44 – I used to be a huge fan of Tom Clancy books. Probably the last really good one was Rainbow Six. The character of John Clark has always been my favorite in the books and this one focused almost exclusively on him.

00:47 – What was up with that old Star Wars troop transport toy? Does anyone know the one I’m talking about? It was not shown in any of the classic movies but some toy designer apparently realized Lucas had not shown us an efficient way of getting a dozen or so Stormtroopers from point A to point B. Am I the only one who disagrees vehemently with the idea of a movie toy that wasn’t in the movie?

00:49 – I am a horrible flirter. I am also a horrible flirtee. Unless a girl came up to me, showed me her breasts and told me she liked me and would like to date me I wouldn’t have a clue. I also never mastered the art of meaningless small talk with a girl I was interested in but not currently dating. It’s a miracle I’m married. Seriously.

00:53 – Looks like Rerun operates the restaurant.

00:55 – My favorite kind of bar was, and is, the kind where no girl would go into. This may (partially) explain my lack of dating experience.

00:57 – Goose, who’s butt did you kiss to get in here anyway? The list is long, but distinguished.

Time for an intermission. Let’s continue in part two of MOVIES ON THE BRAIN: “S.W.A.T.”>>>

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