Based on the silly, short-lived 1970s television series, "S.W.A.T." is a shaky jumble of violent scattershot images, macho banter and dim platitudes. At its best, it often looks and sounds like a police video. But it can't possibly achieve the chilling adrenaline rush of the real thing.

First-time feature director Clark Johnson has been associated with some solid television in recent seasons, including playing detective Meldrick Lewis on "Homicide: Life on the Street" and directing episodes of "NYPD Blue" and "The West Wing."

Though he gets some good actors to waste, Johnson gets nothing like the quality of writing or topical guts of those shows to work with here. Instead, he's stuck with Kevlar armor, sniper rifles and a vast military arsenal of things that go bang and boom. And, of course, there's the big black SWAT truck that rolls up like some menacing ice cream van with echoes of the TV theme in the background.

The story starts with a shootout that seems modeled on the brutal 1997 battle between the L.A.P.D. and heavily armed and armored men that took place live on L.A. helicopter news; thousands of rounds were fired and police cars were literally shot to pieces as officers and civilians went down.

In the movie, Farrell, who plays handsome good cop Jim Street, and Jeremy Renner, who plays his grimacing bad partner Brian Gamble, become involved in a hostage situation that spins out of control and gets them thrown off the SWAT team. Gamble quits the department in a rage, but Street takes a demotion, hoping to redeem himself one day.

Predictably, that day comes minutes later in movie time as crusty Dan "Hondo" Harrelson, played by Jackson, is assigned to put together an "old school" SWAT team of his own choosing. But as Jackson recruits and trains his band of misfit officers, the next hour seems more like filler and is improbably yawn-inducing for an action picture.

That's due in part to a ham-fisted attempt to introduce the team members, who include LL Cool J as Deacon "Deke" Kaye and Michelle Rodriguez as Chris Sanchez, with TV-like vignettes portraying them as real human beings behind the badges. But being a good son or a struggling single mom fades faster than flying bullets when the criminals start acting up. And we find out that these cops can be killers (or even traitors) at the drop of an ammo clip.

The pace of "S.W.A.T." is perverse. Early on, Olivier Martinez's sexy-sinister French bad guy, Alex Montel, surfaces to do some dirty work in L.A. He gets arrested, and we learn he's a drug kingpin from a family worth billions. He's the most engaging character going, but he keeps disappearing from the story.

It's an hour and 20 minutes into the movie before the plot hook is finally set, and Montel offers a $100 million reward to anyone who can spring him from custody and get him out of the country. Hondo's SWAT team draws the assignment of moving him to the federal pen, as video game-like gangs of mercenaries pop up all over the streets of L.A., armed with everything from machine guns to RPG7 rocket launchers.

"I can't believe how much grief that frog's $100 million offer is bringing us," Jackson quips.

It's a bit of tongue-in-cheek French-bashing, bound to grab a reflexive laugh from xenophobic American audiences. But it's not nearly as droll or as telling as the line Jackson delivers later -- crashing head-on into the movie's flaming final shootout, signifying all the way.

"Here's where watching the world's most scary police chases pays off," he says.

If only that were less sad and more true.