As a wrap present to mark the end of filming, Samuel L. Jackson gave the principal cast a signature 9-millimetre pistol with the letters S.W.A.T. engraved on the grip.
Paul Walker had been lined up to portray Jim Street and had even begun training for the role, but he was forced to withdraw owing to filming on 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003).
The S.W.A.T. officers who hand over the secure phone at the start of the film in the bank-heist scene were real L.A.P.D. S.W.A.T. personnel, present on set as technical advisers, and were even allowed to don their uniforms and carry out the scene 'for fun'.
The cast received S.W.A.T. tactical, weapons and live-fire training for the film. Colin Farrell was also given L.A.P.D. driving instruction in the Ford Crown Victoria.
Colin Farrell wanted to do the stunt himself, in character, for the sequence where the S.W.A.T. team abseils from a helicopter. His request was refused on safety grounds. Farrell's stunt double then broke his ankle on the first take.
This film, The Italian Job (2003) and Hollywood Homicide (2003) were all being filmed in the centre of Los Angeles at the same time.
The bank shown at the start of the film was actually an empty building slated for demolition, so the production team were allowed to film there, tear it apart and do as they pleased. They also had to obtain more than five hundred signatures from local residents and businesses to secure permission to fly helicopters at low altitude during the S.W.A.T. team's insertion.
This was the final film to feature Steve Forrest, who originally portrayed Lieutenant Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson in S.W.A.T. (1975). He is credited as S.W.A.T. Truck Driver.
The final scene was shot at a California State Prison in the desert. During production, prison officers experienced a serious incident with inmates and the facility was put into lockdown, with half the film crew inside the main gates and the other half outside. Filming recommenced three hours later once the lockdown was lifted.
Whilst Alex Montel ( Olivier Martinez ) is being handcuffed by Jim Street ( Colin Farrell ), he is seen face down on top of Alex Trebek's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At that exact moment, Trebek supplies the uncredited voice-over for a news bulletin.
EASTER EGG: Navigate to Deleted Scenes within the Special Features. When "Hondo reviews files at home" is highlighted, press left twice and then up once. That will highlight Street's shield and reveal footage of the real high-speed chase that occurred on the 6th Street bridge whilst filming.
With his earnings from the film, Jeremy Renner later bought a run-down house with a friend; they renovated it and lived there for a while. Renner said they realised a fairly sizeable profit when they sold the property some years later.
The Sixth Street Bridge had been closed for filming when a high‑speed pursuit involving a stolen car tore through as the cast were rehearsing the scene. At the time, a Learjet was parked on the bridge in such a position that there was barely room for a mid‑sized car to get through, with only a few inches to spare on either side. Initially, when security warned the crew that a chase was coming their way, they assumed it was a prank until they spotted LAPD officers and news helicopters overhead. The crew later tried to incorporate the footage captured from the helicopters into the film, but it didn’t work very well.
Vin Diesel was offered the part of Deacon "Deke" Kaye but turned it down, as he was busy filming The Chronicles of Riddick (2004).
Rod Perry (who was "Deke" in S.W.A.T. (1975)) makes a cameo appearance as Deke's father in this film — Deke being the character portrayed by LL Cool J.
In one scene Boxer watches an instalment of the TV series S.W.A.T. (1975). On screen is Steve Forrest, who portrayed Lieutenant Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson.
Deacon "Deke" Kaye (LL Cool J) outlines what he would do if he came into a large sum of money that Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) offers. He says he would hire Halle Berry as his yoga instructor. He makes the remark within earshot of Martinez, who married Halle in 2013.
The film's bank-opening sequence was loosely inspired by the 1997 North Hollywood shoot-out. Several radio transmissions (for example, "There's nothing we have that can stop them!") were reproduced verbatim from the recordings of the 1997 incident.
Mark Wahlberg was initially contacted about portraying Jim Street.
Every officer from the television series features in the film, apart from Officer Luca, whose part was assumed by Officer Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez).
Michael Bay, Tony Scott, John Woo, Antoine Fuqua, Rob Cohen, Joel Schumacher, Zack Snyder and Michael Mann were all approached to direct the film prior to Clark Johnson being attached. They turned it down as they were occupied with other projects.
When choosing a location for the aeroplane escape, they considered closing Interstate 405, or a stretch of another motorway, to land a Learjet, but that proved beyond their means, so they closed the 6th Street Bridge each night from 6pm to 5am for filming and used CGI for the plane’s approach. The take-off sequence was filmed for real, using an aircraft fitted with a V8 engine so it could be driven along the bridge.
Throughout the 2003 film S.W.A.T., the large S.W.A.T. vehicle was actually a converted fire engine, and it proved troublesome to work with owing to frequent breakdowns and mechanical faults during filming.
In the scene where facial-recognition was used to identify Alex, ID photos of the film crew are shown, appearing as a rapid shuffle of faces on the monitor. On the DVD, if you step through that sequence frame-by-frame, you can spot nearly every member of the film crew. All of the photographs in that sequence were taken by Dave Nico, S.W.A.T.'s Assistant Coordinator (his photograph does not appear).
EASTER EGG: On the DVD, navigate to the second page of the Special Features and select "6th Street bridge". Press the right-arrow twice and the down-arrow twice — this will bring Samuel L. Jackson's cap into focus. Press OK (or the equivalent control), and you'll be taken to footage of the S.W.A.T. team and crew playing golf.
Colin Farrell, Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Renner, along with Reg E. Cathey, featured in films adapted from Marvel Comics. Colin portrayed Bullseye in Daredevil (2003). Reg E. Cathey took on the part of Dr Franklin Storm in Fantastic Four (2015). Samuel and Jeremy portrayed Nick Fury and Hawkeye, respectively, within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
For the limo sequence, after the team had emerged from the sewer, the film crew had rung round various actors trying to get someone to sit in the limo for a cameo, but when no one was willing to come onto set in the middle of the night, they opted to have actors portray school pupils instead.
Jim Street (Colin Farrell) has a poster of Bullitt (1968) on the wall of his flat. It can be seen briefly behind him as his girlfriend is moving out. In real life, Steve McQueen is one of Farrell's idols.
Clark Johnson: Deke's colleague, who is struck by a frying pan whilst Deke gives chase to a suspect.
The Ambassador Hotel, a Hollywood landmark built in the 1920s (and the site of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination), appears as itself in the film. Closed in the late 1980s, it has since been used solely for location shoots and for police training; officers have been permitted to train there free of charge. Prior to this picture, That Thing You Do! (1996) was the first film to make use of it as a filming location. The building is currently owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District, which intends to demolish it and replace it with a school.
Most members of the S.W.A.T. team, Street included, are portrayed as P3s — Police Officer III. This is indicated by the two-stripe chevron they wear on their uniforms. The Police Officer III designation is awarded to officers who have passed an exam and is regarded as a senior police-officer rank. P3s typically act as training officers and can, when required, stand in for sergeants.
The melody that the team sing at the table in the film's trailer is the theme tune from the original television series.
Colin Farrell and Jeremy Renner appear as former partners turned foes. Farrell appeared as Bullseye in Daredevil (2003), who, in the comics, becomes the Dark Avenger of Hawkeye. Renner portrayed Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Polish hostage, played by David St. James, is depicted as a man beset by paranoia about robotic aliens. St. James also portrayed a NASA scientist in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), who worked alongside extraterrestrial robots.
Alex's uncle's car (which Alex is driving after he has killed his uncle) bears the same number plate (2WAQ233) as Cindy Campbell in Scary Movie 2 (2001), and is also seen in other films. It's one of several fake number plates routinely employed in television and film. Essentially, it serves as the vehicular counterpart to the ubiquitous 'Oceanic' airline name used in TV and film productions.
Officer Sanchez (Michelle Rodriguez) is said to have been in the Metro Division for many years but never made it onto S.W.A.T. Metro, or the Metropolitan Division, is an elite section of the L.A.P.D., comprising a number of specialised units such as the Special Investigation Section (S.I.S.). Metro is not a geographic division like the other stations; rather it is the division for special units that operate across the whole of Los Angeles. S.W.A.T. is part of the Metro Division. So Sanchez is already assigned to a specialised division, just not to S.W.A.T. By contrast, Deke (LL Cool J) is a regular patrol officer in the Southwest Division, covering only that section of Los Angeles.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tommy Lee Jones and Ed Harris were mooted for the part of Lieutenant Dan "Hondo" Harrison.
The number plate 2GAT123 has also turned up in a number of other Hollywood films and TV series, including Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), Traffic (2000), Pay It Forward (2000), Mulholland Drive (2001), Crazy/Beautiful (2001), L.A. Story (1991), Go (1999) and Two and a Half Men (2003).
The song "Samuel Jackson" by Hot Action Cop, heard in the film and over the end credits, featured a vocalised version of the original S.W.A.T. theme tune — the same passage sung by the S.W.A.T. team in the diner.
This marks the second time LL Cool J and Samuel L. Jackson have appeared together on screen. Their first collaboration came four years earlier in Deep Blue Sea (1999), where one portrayed a chef and the other a laboratory researcher. In this film they both play police officers.
Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield (2002), was the final writer among several who worked on the screenplay, although he remains uncredited.
Cans of Dr Pepper are visible in no fewer than three scenes. The first is when Street (Colin Farrell) is cleaning his guns; the second occurs when Boxer (Brian Van Holt) opens a can just before his pager goes off; and the third is when the Deputy Sheriff (Ben Siegler) realises who Alex (Olivier Martinez) really is.
Josh Charles (Officer McCabe) also appeared as a corrupt police officer (Detective Fowler) in Four Brothers (2005). Both characters are exposed as corrupt and meet their end by forms of suicide: in this film he pulls the trigger himself, whereas in Four Brothers he deliberately provokes officers to shoot him — a classic case of suicide by cop.
One of five films that Colin Farrell released in 2003; the others are Daredevil (2003), The Recruit (2003), Intermission (2003) and Veronica Guerin (2003).
The budget for accommodation was so limited that some members of the cast and crew had to share furniture. Colin Farrell said that he and Jeremy Renner had to share a bed, and at times even the same pillow.
Had Paul Walker remained in the film, it would have marked his sixth collaboration with co-star Michelle Rodriguez. The other films they both appeared in were The Fast and the Furious (2001), Fast And Furious, Fast Five, Fast And Furious 6 and Furious 7. 2 Fast 2 Furious and this film were released in the same year, 2003.
The television series S.W.A.T. is set in the same universe as the film: the characters perform the theme tune in a bar, and a brief clip of the series appears on a television set in the movie.
This marks LL Cool J's second appearance in a film adapted from a 1970s television series. His first part was Mr Jones in Charlie's Angels (2000), and here he appears as Deke.
Four of the cast later became associated with the Marvel Universe. Samuel L. Jackson portrayed Nick Fury and Jeremy Renner portrayed Hawkeye in the Avengers films; Colin Farrell took on the role of Bullseye in Daredevil, and Reg E. Cathey appeared as Rev James Lucas (Luke's father) in Luke Cage (2016).
Samuel L. Jackson and Brian Van Holt were both featured in Basic (2003).
Neal H. Moritz: The driver of a Land Rover who is knocked down by a tractor unit.
Film director Clark Johnson makes a cameo appearance as Deke's unnamed partner; in the credits he is listed as Deke's handsome partner.
Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell had both worked with Kiefer Sutherland before. Jackson teamed up with Sutherland several years earlier in A Time to Kill (1996), while Farrell appeared alongside Sutherland in Phone Booth (2002) a few months prior. Both of Sutherland's roles — The Caller and Freddie Lee Cobb — turned the lives of the characters portrayed by Jackson and Farrell into a living hell.
Roger Spottiswoode was lined up to direct an adaptation of the TV series in the late 1990s.
This film is one of two feature-film collaborations, as at November 2016, between director Clark Johnson and cinematographer Gabriel Beristain. Their first collaboration was this picture; the other was The Sentinel (2006).
Larry Poindexter, who portrayed LAPD Captain Thomas Fuller, later guest-starred on the 2017 series S.W.A.T., which stars Shemar Moore. In the 2017 series, Poindexter played Sergeant Nick Boyer with the LAPD Force Investigation Department.
Marcus Nispel was mooted to helm the film.
When cartel leader Alex Montiel (Olivier Martinez) arrives at LAX, TSA officers discover a pocket knife in his suitcase, and Customs Officer No. 2 (Andi Chapman) asks him, 'Qu'est-ce sais la knife avec la suitcase', a muddled mix of French and English that, taken literally, reads 'What do you know the knife with the suitcase?'.
What she should have said to be understood by a French speaker was 'Pourquoi le couteau est-il dans votre valise?'
It is the only instalment in the S.W.A.T. series that was not released in the same year as a film from Pixar's Cars franchise; S.W.A.T.: Firefight (2011) was released in the same year as Cars 2 (2011), and S.W.A.T.: Under Siege (2017) was released in the same year as Cars 3 (2017).
When Sgt Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson (Samuel L. Jackson) collects his M4 from Jim Street (Colin Farrell), Street mentions he has swapped the buffer.
He could be referring to one of two different items. One is simply a weighted mass that resists the rearward motion of the bolt carrier group, slowing it so the return spring can push it forward again and bring the bolt back to battery for the next shot. You would only change that if you deliberately wanted it heavier or lighter, since altering its mass changes the cyclic rate in fully automatic fire.
The other type are consumable rubber/plastic fittings that need periodic replacement: for instance, a moulded plastic or rubber insert located at the rearmost area of the lower receiver that protects the receiver from wear caused by the repeated impacts of moving internals. Some shooters even use a foam earplug in the same spot to quiet a rattle caused by a loose fit between upper and lower receivers. That is likely what stopped the rattle in Hondo's receiver — he immediately noticed and praised Street for it.
Another likely possibility is a rubber bumper fitted at the rear of the buffer tube; it reduces perceived recoil by cushioning the impact when the buffer weight strikes the tube's rear end. Roughly 40% of the felt recoil on AR-pattern rifles results from the buffer weight slamming into the rearmost face of the buffer tube, so fitting such a bumper is a worthwhile tweak for an M4 used in police tactical work. It is therefore highly likely Street also changed that rubber bumper in the buffer tube for Hondo.
At the shooting range, when T.J. McCabe (Josh Charles) goes head-to-head on the two-gun course with Sgt. Dan 'Hondo' Harrison (Samuel L. Jackson) or Jim Street (Colin Farrell), the contest is inherently unfair: all three are right‑handed yet move in opposite directions, meaning Hondo and Street are firing from their strong side while McCabe is firing from his weak side. Comparing them may not seem significant, but tactically the outcomes are like night and day.
A proper competition would have timed each shooter and assessed their accuracy from the same side of the course, but the bilateral symmetry of the course as presented on film made for a far more striking visual, captured with hand‑held cameras and drones. It’s a case of favouring what looks cool for the audience over staging a genuinely fair fight.
The lone S.W.A.T. film that was not released during the 2010s.
