S.W.A.T.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may turn off your brains now.
How to develop the plot of a brainless Hollywood action flick, in 11 easy steps:
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Demonstrate SWAT’s awesome prowess but arrogant fallibility with an opening scene that introduces handsome lead Colin Farrell.
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Develop some guilt and other emotion to be easily overcome later in the film, via a few heart-to-heart chats between colleagues. Demote Farrell for his cockiness in the first scene, but consign his colleague to the police bin of history.
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Introduce Samuel L. Jackson as the older, wiser counterpart to the young and impetuous Farrell.
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Introduce the bad guy at LAX.
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Build up to Jackson inviting Farrell back to the SWAT team.
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Get the SWAT team trained up with a good ‘ol sequence of montage-style scenes, followed by a test, and then a booze-up and celebration.
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Up the pace of the story be re-introducing the baddie in a jail-break scene, reinforcing how bad he is by listing his crimes. Have a bit of trouble transporting him around.
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Engage in the only original twist in the story (which I won’t reveal).
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Crawl around in some sewers for a while in a game of cat and mouse.
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Reveal the ridiculous escape route the bad guy’s rescuers have arranged for him, except that sadly:
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The good guys win.
This film is pure entertainment, as long as you don’t get too irritated by the gung-ho nature of the presentation (or for that matter, the blatant Fedex product placement). If you feel like an action film with a bit more intelligence, see another film of Jackson’s instead: The Negotiator, which has a lot of similar themes.
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