Trailer
Plot summary
Jim Street and his partner Brian Gamble are pulled off the Los Angeles SWAT team after a bank robbery in which Gamble disobeys orders and a hostage is wounded. Gamble quits, and Street stays on in the gun cage. Six months later Sergeant Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson is brought in to rebuild the unit, and he recruits Street along with T.J. McCabe, Michael Boxer, Deacon Kaye and Chris Sanchez. Captain Fuller warns that Hondo and Street will be discharged if the team fails. The team's first real mission is escorting French drug lord Alex Montel to federal prison, and Montel offers $100 million on live television to anyone able to free him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about S.W.A.T. (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mark Wahlberg was the first choice for Jim Street but turned it down in favour of the lead in The Italian Job. Paul Walker was then cast and had even started training for the part, but had to drop out when filming began on 2 Fast 2 Furious, and Colin Farrell replaced him in July 2002.
- LL Cool J was cast as Deacon "Deke" Kaye in September 2002, after Vin Diesel declined the offer due to his commitment to The Chronicles of Riddick.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger was once attached to star, with Marcus Nispel hired to direct and Oliver Stone set to produce. Principal photography was scheduled to begin in October 1997, but the production stalled after Nispel departed only weeks before filming was due to commence.
- Zack Snyder departed over creative differences, having envisioned a gritty, R-rated action thriller. In a 2024 interview he described his version as "300 with machine guns", saying that the studio instead preferred "a PG-13 commercial action movie".
- The bank robbery that opens the film was choreographed to closely resemble the North Hollywood shootout of 1997, and it uses real dispatch audio from that incident.
- The unit's training scenes were filmed at the city's historic Ambassador Hotel, which was demolished in 2006, and the climax was shot on the former Sixth Street Viaduct, once one of Hollywood's most popular bridges for location filming.
