As loyal GooseReaders know, we have a Blockbuster membership. We've recently been watching lots of TV DVD's, among them was SWAT. We loved SWAT when it was first aired in the mid 70's and didn't even know that it had only been on the air for 2 seasons! It lasted much longer in our memory!
TV show - Featured Hondo, who built a new SWAT team from the best police officers available. There was David Kaye, the scout (often called Deacon Kaye because he was a highly religious guy). Then the three young guys, Jim Street (recently lost a partner, deeply emotional dude), Dominic Luca (a real young ladies man, but basically loyal) and TJ McCabe (steady girlfriend, LOYAL cop - he's the sharpshooter).
All of these guys were deeply loyal to SWAT and WOULD NEVER EVER betray Hondo. They even tried to be loyal to the guy who replaced Hondo when Hondo got shot. Hondo and Deacon were family men, the other guys were single, but TJ never chased girls since he had that steady girlfriend. TJ was a nerdy type anyway.
Movie - OMG, did these people watch the TV show? Seems like someone just decided to take a few names from the TV show, alter the characters' personalities, sing the familiar theme song and call it a TV based movie.
Where do we start??? Jim Street actually covers for his loose cannon partner. We know from the TV show that, while Jim will cover on the street, back at the precinct, he'll tell everyone the truth! He'll admit if the guy is a loose cannon. He somehow loses his personality in the movie and covers up for Gamble (interesting name for a loose cannon, huh?)
Then, they create a French villain who has a Spanish accent and has an Italian mob family. HUH???? If you want a French villain, please make him FRENCH! And that pathetic French spoken at security??? PLEASE!!! "Qu'est-ce que ce la KNIFE dans la SUITCASE???" Who writes this stuff anyway?
Moving on...The French guy (with a fake Spanish passport) decides to offer $100 million for someone who will help him get out of the country. Ok, so first a neighborhood gang decides to take on SWAT??? HELLO? We have to believe that REAL gangs would know better than to voluntarily take on SWAT machine guns. Next, TJ decides that he wants the $100 million and pairs up with Gamble to help the French guy (and even calls him "Frenchie"). Now, let's be real...TJ was not a money driven sort of guy. MAYBE if TJ had gotten married, had a kid who needed a transplant or maybe the French guy had threatened his wife...Ok...maybe! But the real TJ would never have done it for MONEY!? And by the way, we also know from the TV show that TJ would never have chosen to pair up with a loose cannon like Gamble!!!!
Look....they decided to not have Dominic Luca in the movie and they added these Boxer and Sanchez characters. If you must butcher the characters, why couldn't they have had Boxer and/or Sanchez be the disloyal ones instead of the ones shot???
If they had taken this movie and not claimed it was based on the TV show, it would have still been a rather silly movie, but we would have enjoyed it. It was hard to enjoy it when they butchered the characters so much!!! Now, we could truly understand Samuel L Jackson as Hondo. Samuel L Jackson has the "Hondo feeling". We even like Collin Farrell's Jim Street (except when he doesn't sell out Gamble..we know that Jim would have!). The movie also forgot that Hondo tried to talk people out...it was a theme...he was big into NOT shooting (Ed Note: we watched the movie again, and Hondo does say ONCE that they try to do this thing without violence, but he seems to forget that later on...). He was also into "wearing the uniform" (the bulletproof vest). None of that was in the movie. Come on...it doesn't take that much to watch the show on DVD before making the movie!
Now..if you want to read something more interesting than the movie, go to Amazon, search for the SWAT tv dvds and read the comments. The actors who played TJ McCabe and Dominic Luca actually posted! They were not invited to participate in the movie (but Hondo and Deak were, of course, Robert Urich isn't with us anymore so he has no opinion). Isn't it neat when everyone can throw in his/her two cents?