Action

S.W.A.T.: Firefight (2011)

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When I heard a straight-to-video sequel to the 2003 actioner S.W.A.T. was right around the corner, the special weapons and tactics unit in my pants became visibly mobilized. That being said, S.W.A.T.: Firefight has absolutely nothing to do with the first one. Sure, there is a S.W.A.T. team present, but it’s a whole new cast, led by Gabriel Macht (The Spirit) as Cutler, a by-the-book S.W.A.T. superstar in L.A. who, through a student-exchange program sponsored by Homeland Security, is sent to Detroit to train a ragtag group of misfits to adapt to the fast paced-world of post-9/11 S.W.A.T. procedures and practices. (Personally, I would’ve just built a RoboCop. But I think outside the box.)

The first hour and 10 minutes is the best damn training video you’ve ever seen, something you’d watch on your first day on the force. It’d be called So You Think You Got What It Takes to Be in S.W.A.T.? From hand-to-hand combat to target practice, it’s all here and occasionally filmed first-person video-game shooter-style, which is fun for us, but might cause impressionable youths to shoot their classmates.

While all this is going on, Robert Patrick minimally toys with the crew, in a bid for poorly plotted revenge: He’s an ex-CIA spook who is pissed they kinda-sorta-but-not-really killed the woman (Kristanna Loken, for about one minute) he’s been stalking. We’ve all been there, right?

Next Day Air director Benny Boom does a good job here, especially with the material he’s given. If anything, Firefight feels like an above-average TV pilot for a new S.W.A.T. television incarnation, which I’m sure would air on CBS after JAG: The Next Generation and NCIS: Surf Patrol ’11. Oh, and that iconic Barry De Vorzon theme? A few bars of it show up dutifully over the opening credits, and proceed to disappear, never to be heard again. However, they had plenty of room for rapper Tony Yayo’s “S.W.A.T. 2,” which manages to prove everything un-hip white people have said about hip-hop absolutely true in only three minutes. —Louis Fowler

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Thriller

Appointment with Danger (1951)

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Appointment with Danger is one of those movies that come along every so often: one from which you don’t expect more than a mildly diverting 89 minutes, but turns out to be a small gem. The cast includes Alan Ladd and some favorite character actors — Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, Paul Stewart, Jan Sterling — that I’d like to kick back and have a beer with. The picture was credited as being film noir, so why not take a chance?

Ladd is Al Goddard, a postal inspector no one likes, sent to Gary, Ind., to investigate the murder of one of his colleagues. He finds that the only witness is a nun, Sister Augustine (Phyllis Calvert). As soon as they meet, you suspect that he will end up carrying an unlightable torch for her, but it doesn’t happen. They are both too dedicated to their jobs for such foolishness. Besides, she’s already married.

She saw only one of the killers (Morgan), but the other one (Webb) thinks she should be killed just to be on the safe side. Goddard goes undercover as a bent government man in order to find out what these crooks are up to, and how to stop it.

The pleasure comes from the obvious fun the cast is having and the surprisingly sharp dialogue, like Goddard defining love as the feeling a man has for a gun that doesn’t jam, and later, a great line perfectly delivered. When the crooks capture the nun, they decide to kill her, then Goddard talks them out of it and one of them turns to her and says, “Sister, you’re either very lucky or you’ve been living right.” To a nun, he says this, and no one onscreen reacts, despite the fact that it’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard. —Doug Bentin

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Horror

2001 Maniacs (2005)

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Writer/director Tim Sullivan knows exactly what he’s doing with 2001 Maniacs: You need only wait maybe two minutes past the opening credits to get nudity, then 10 more for the plot to be fully established. A remake of H.G. Lewis’ infamous, influential Two Thousand Maniacs! of 1964, it unexpectedly plants you on the side opposite of the “heroes.” In other words, you can’t wait to see these assholes get killed.

Said assholes are frat boys on spring break; they’re the kind of guys who see and refer to women only as “pussy.” On their way to Daytona Beach, they and a few other students stupidly follow a homemade detour sign and end up at the ironically named Pleasant Valley, a small town ready to kick off its annual Guts N’ Glory Jubilee. Mayor Buckman (Robert Englund), he of the Confederate-flag eyepatch, insists they stay as the guests of honor.

That’s because, of course, they’re to be the main course of the barbecue for this cannibal clan. Via Buckman’s bevy of busty beauties, the boys succumb to their comely charms, only to end up on the business end of machines of torture. This allows Sullivan to go whole-hog in updating Lewis’ brand of Southern-fried splatter for the gorno generation.

But it’s not without a strong sense of humor, mostly effective, in the same vein as Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever (Roth serves as producer and provides a cameo), and some of it even qualifying as sharp satire on racial and regional stereotypes. If you have an open mind and don’t mind the mess, you’re apt to find 2001 Maniacs mighty tasty — perhaps even finger-lickin’ good. —Rod Lott

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