Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Crikey The Sweeney is the dogs bollocks!

Unlike the success that a TV cop show like Miami Vice enjoyed for years here and in the UK, I'm pretty sure that few people in the U.S. have ever heard of, let alone seen The Sweeney. You're forgiven, like Vice, it's a great for it's time but awful for today. It was a hard-hitting British cop show from the mid 1970's that starred John Inspector Morse Thaw as Jack Regan and Dennis Minder Waterman as George Carter; members of the elite "flying squad" [a police unit that operates with no district boundaries] otherwise known as The Sweeney [rhyming slang calls the flying squad 'Sweeney Todd']. The series featured a plethora of famous guest stars in it's 3 year run including John Hellboy Hurt, Joss Lethal Weapon 2 Ackland, Brian Flash Gordon Blessed, John Lord of the Rings Rhys-Davies, Julian The Empire Strikes Back Glover and even Maureen The Pianist Lipman.

If you've seen The Sweeney series, you'll be pleased to learn that this re imagining is pretty much like the re-imagining of Miami Vice [a movie that has my favourite mouth shot] insofar as only the names of the characters bear any resemblance to the original. Ray The Departed Winstone [who also had a minor villain role in the original series] took up the mantle of DI Regan while Ben Drew [rapper Plan B] took the role of DC Carter. Damien Homeland Lewis had the role of their ever suffering boss Detective Chief Inspector Frank Haskins.


The movie opens with the flying squad coming down hard [with baseball bats] on a warehouse  robbery in progress. Following their success, albeit with a tremendous amount of collateral damage, the team celebrate. Regan buys off a snout (informant) [the incomparable Alan Snatch Ford] with some of the gold that "went missing" from the warehouse. Internal Investigations officer DCI Ivan Lewis [Steven Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Mackintosh] however mounts an inquiry into the actions of Regan and the squad although it's revealed he has more of a personal vendetta because he knows Regan has been shagging [having sexual relations with] his wife DC Nancy Lewis [Hayley Captain America: The First Avenger Atwell]. Regan doesn't have time to worry about that because he gets a tip-off about a planned robbery on a bank, while a jewellery store robbery leaves £200k of jewellery in the hands of a dangerous criminal, and one otherwise innocent civilian dead.

British crime drama plots are excessively detailed, researched and sometimes convoluted to the point of boredom or distraction and I think The Sweeney's certainly falls into this trap if you happen to concentrate too hard on it. So it may be best not to. Thankfully the action is fast and furious, interrogations are brutal and there's a lot of "excessive force" used, enough to be honest, to distract you from said plot. There's probably a few things you can't suspend disbelief for however and one was the grotesquely ridiculous 'relationship' between a picturesque beauty like Atwell [29] and Ray Winstone [55] who has the physique of Oliver Reed before his death. People were either cringing or snickering in disbelief at their love scene.

I've heard of Nick Love's vigilante movie Outlaw back in 2007 around the time of it's release but The Sweeney is the first of his movies that I've seen. So based on this I think he did a bloody fine job of it all. The man created a quintessentially British, thoroughly enjoyable action crime drama with a budget of £3m which in technical terms is low budget. Both the car chases and foot pursuits are up there with Ronin and Heat and keep you glued fast to the action. Kudos to the director, editor and the DP for such a lavishly shot movie that you don't often see coming from the UK. Dynamic and noteworthy Scottish composer Lorne Ironclad Balfe, one of Hans Zimmer's Remote Control music monkeys provided what I must label as one of the finest scores of the year.

Final Verdict: Despite an overarching plot and a few writing miss-steps, The Sweeney features excellent lead performances in a thoroughly entertaining movie that bears little or no resemblance to it's progenitor. Now, shut it you slags, an' go watch it!

Colonel Creedon Rating: ****1/2

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