Mucho macho fantasy

While imprisoned, Martel's public offer of $100 million to anyone who can free him precipitates gangs of armed ne'er do-wells pouring out of the Los Angeles badlands. Which means extra overtime for Colin Farrell's Jim Street (given another chance on the SWAT team after a suspension for disobeying orders), token tough girl Chris Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) and a motley bunch of heavy duty LAPD/SWAT persons trained up by veteran Sergeant Hondo (Jackson).

Having set the scene in the first few minutes (Street's partner is suspended from SWAT and leaves the force; a river of bad blood between the pencil-pushing, media-obsessed police chief and Hondo, a brief but evidently effective training programme), director Clark Johnson raises the stakes by introducing Martel - a French drug kingpin so badass that he follows up the murder of his father by cutting his uncle's throat in a restaurant, in order to speed up his inheritance of the family business.

From then on, between sniping at the French, the movie goes into overdrive as Martel is rescued from SWAT custody by a crack team, and a turbocharged pursuit culminates in a Lear jet landing on LA's Sixth Street bridge.

Fantasy machismo for boys who want to have guns. I'd love to attend the Paris premiere.

S.W.A.T.
Cert: cert12A