The Sweeney (2013)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

What exactly did happen here then?The original TV series would turn in its grave with this 21st century remake. The 1970s Classic we all knew and loved has been disgraced here, and to tell you the truth I never really had high expectations for this film when I heard they were making it, but the finished article is so much worse than I could have imagined.Jack Regan originally played by John Thaw who portrayed the character as a no nonsense hard man but professional all the while, which is more than can be said for the Ray Winstone edition. I admired Winstone in Ripleys Game, and he fit the bill perfectly for that film but in this one he's made Regan an unprofessional thug of a police officer with more use of the F word than Gordon Ramsey ever did. His character is made even less believable by his much younger (and much prettier) love interest. Why she would be interested in a man like this is beyond me but there it is.Now George Carter, no surprise here that this portrayal would be a disaster too. What we have here is a complete chav who just got outta jail to become a respected law enforcer. OK! when does that ever happen in real life. He was totally unwatchable, totally irritating and so not the right actor for the part AGAIN.The whole film makes no sense at all, I doubt the writer or director ever bothered to watch the original series but if they did they must have though it was dull or something. Bad direction, lack of typical Cockney humour, plot and likable Cockney characters.Totally shocking. Don't buy it, don't even watch it online.

This movie follows the basic hard hitting formula that succeeded with the cult 70s TV series. Except that this time there are no Ford Granadas for Regan's team, the crims don't drive Jaguars, there is a dearth of cardboard boxes to drive into during the car chases, and there are also no sanitised punches pulled on the screen violence.It does exaggerate the "bad boy" cop theme, and the clichés come thick and fast, but somehow they get away with it.....Well, Almost. I'm still amazed that true to tradition The Sweeney clearly haven't had any firearms practice. All those bullets fired at blokes in the open, and ne'er a hit.I suspect the director had a tongue very firmly stuck in his cheek for many of the scenes, just as the original series did.I've added in an extra point for the fantastic London locations they have used throughout the movie. They could have buggered about with it and used more sets for some of the shootups but to catch Trafalgar Square empty of tourists and commuters must have taken some planning. The night shots of the London landscape are beautifully done.The plot moves along nicely, and it's a good yarn. Don't expect deep social comment or Morse-like sleuthing (see what I did there with a side reference to John Thaw!?). But you may get a hint of a discussion point in how close to the fine line between policeman and criminal can our hero and his team get while successfully bagging the villains.1970s Sweeney on steroids, and done brilliantly.

I read a few posts on the internet about how mainstream cinema is pillaging the classics due to a lack of new ideas. Now, I have never watched the TV show The Sweeney (in fact, I had to be told that 'Sweeney' was cockney rhyming slang for 'Sweeney Todd/Flying Squad') so I can't compare the film version to it source material.However, if you can get your head round the fact that there is a movie set in London that DOESN'T feature Danny Dyer, then you might enjoy it for being a pretty solid British cop/heist movie.We're introduced to The Sweeney, i.e. a hard-as-nails bunch of London police officers, who deal with bank robberies, led by Ray Winstone. They go about their business happily roughing up criminals when their department is invaded by an Internal Affairs man, hell-bent on cleaning up their act. If that wasn't bad enough, they have to find a team of robbers who went as far as to execute one of the innocent members of the public during the raid.It trundles along quite nicely. The car chases are nothing to write home about, but there is a pretty tense shoot-out in and around Trafalgar Square which is like the British version of the similar gun battle in Heat.If you're looking for gritty and hard-nosed police, action films (and can put up with a sprinkling of cockney clichés and suspend your disbelief long enough to believe that Hayley Atwell would genuinely find Ray Winstone REALLY attractive) then you should enjoy this. Although, I should warn you: just as there's no Danny Dyer, there's not as much screen-time dedicated to Damian Lewis as there probably should be.

I had seen many clips of the classic legendary 1970s TV series starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, so a reboot film was an interesting concept, and the choice of leading actor was a good idea, so I hoped it would be worthwhile enough, despite mixed reviews. Basically slobbish, old style DI Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and young protégé DC George Carter (Ben Drew, aka Plan B) are police officers working for the Flying Squad, they have unstable methods for catching criminals, this annoys Internal Affairs officer DCI Ivan Lewis (Underworld's Steven Mackintosh), but also Regan is having an affair with Lewis's estranged policewoman wife Nancy (Captain America's Hayley Atwell). Information about a planned robbery in a private bank is given to Regan, this ends up in carnage when Regan disobeys the orders of DCI Frank Haskins (Homeland's Damian Lewis) during the shoot-out in central London, following this he is stripped of his badge and briefly imprisoned. Regan suspected the robbery was carried out by his long-time adversary Francis Allen (Paul Anderson), but he has an alibi, evidence links violent Serbian criminal Makin Trebolt (Kevin Michaels) to the crime, the criminal kills Nancy, and Regan obtains a fake badge and illegal weapon to go after the thugs, some are caught and interrogated, and information is gathered that helps Carter gain his career back and have Regan pardoned. It finally comes to a car chase with Makin and guilty Allen being pursued by Regan and Carter, the vehicles crash, Makin is fatally wounded by Carter by gunshot, while Allen is heavily injured, with Regan approaching and at gunpoint he says to him his iconic catchphrase, "You're nicked!", in the end the Flying Squad is reinstated, with Regan and Carter walking away to solve their next crime. Also starring Lock, Stock and Two Barrels' Alan Ford as Harry, Caroline Chikezie as DC Kara Clarke, Downton Abbey's Allen Leech as DC Simon Ellis, Sleepy Hollow's Steven Waddington as DC Nathan Miller and EastEnders' Kara Tointon as Megan Barret. Winstone is indeed the right man to be the gritty character Thaw was before him, with some extra swearing of course, and Drew does alright as an actor rather than a rapper, I could not keep up with much of the story to be honest, but it doesn't matter, the fight, guns shooting and chase sequences make up for it, especially the final sequence in the caravan park, with bits and pieces filmed and performed by the Top Gear team, as for the film in whole, it's not such a bad crime thriller. Okay!