In the latest re-imagining of an old TV show brings a modern day view of The Sweeney; a show about a police department that dealt with armed robbery and violent crime, which we don’t really hear too much about in today’s media-obsessed culture in the UK; but will this re-imagining have anything interesting to say on the subject of police brutality, or will it just be brutal to watch?
The ‘Flying Squad’ are the toughest and most violent arm of the London Metropolitan police, who meet violent crime with the same amount of force, if not greater. Led by elder old head Jack Regan (Ray Winstone, Snow White & The Huntsman) and his partner George Carter (Ben ‘Plan B’ Drew, Adulthood), the squad nicknamed the ‘Sweeney’ are being investigated by internal affairs for corruption and brutality. It doesn’t help that the lead investigator’s wife Nancy (Hayley Atwell, Captain America) is having an affair with Regan, and all this comes to a head after the team start investigating a murderous jewellery heist.
Those of you expecting Winstone’s Regan to be a bit of a knockabout laugh will be disappointed; Winstone delivers Regan’s lines and banter with a reasonable sense of realism, but he’s also quite a privately miserable and depressed man whose only reason to go on is to lead his Sweeney into battle; his affair with Nancy is the only thing that makes him feel alive. Winstone is at the right level of acting here to play this sort of role without it being a massive joke on him, and as a modern Regan, he succeeds and is believable as a scary, massive thug when needed.
The intriguing prospect of rapper Plan B (or Ben Drew to his mum)’s acting delivery is… okay; he’s not awful as Carter, and plays the ‘former criminal turned cop’ well enough. His story arc of the higher-ups promising him a career further up the food chain on the other hand is dull, and the more intriguing prospect of him being the younger, family man with a baby on the way, in comparison to the lonely Regan gets shunted to the sides. But when the going gets tough, Drew also convinces us that he is hard enough to play Carter.
Atwell has picked a great follow up role from her breakthrough role in Captain America; from going from a wallflower war officer sweetheart to a ‘final stages of a divorce’, violent street female cop in the ‘Flying Squad’ is a huge difference and makes you double take constantly; it shows the drastic change from big budget Hollywood down to medium budget British cinema, and she looks rough and worn from the divorce/break-up of her marriage, and proves Atwell has expanded her range.
Notable cast members also include Damian Lewis (taking a break from Homeland and slumming it as the chief of Metropolitan police who can’t seem to keep anyone in line), Steven Mackintosh (Luther) as Hayley’s put upon husband Lewis (who seems to think everything is fine whilst investigating the Sweeney), and other faces you’ve probably seen before include Kara Tointon, Alan Ford and Allen Leech in a small who’s who of low level British acting talents.
Of course being based on the original Sweeney, this re-imagining certainly lives up to the violent aspects of the 70’s version; all the physical violence looks plain dirty and rough (with baseball bats freely used on robbers, and cheap punches used in fights to gain an upper hand); showing us how rough the ‘Flying Squad’ has to be to get results, as Regan freely admits. The challenges of this are interesting, with some characters seeing it as an necessary evil, whilst others find it a prehistoric throwback to a worse time that shouldn’t be seen in modern policing, and a whole film based around this would be watchable, and should be encouraged, since it was done well enough here. It’s also interesting as a Brit, as this type of policing isn’t commonplace, or encouraged, compared to other western countries; we don’t usually see armed police on the street, and it perhaps misses the interesting dynamic of exploring British police with guns as an intimidation tactic.
The action scenes also aren’t the best of the summer, but they’re close; there are some terrific set-pieces with the gunfire chasing through Trafalgar Square, the madly intense hunt for suspects in an underground car park, and where the final car chase ludicrously ends up; all being surprisingly memorable and, when combined with the over the limit levels of violence, making The Sweeney a winner.
However, the plot lets the film down massively; it’s cliché and one-note; everything is set up to go A-B-C with no real interesting deviations, and it kind of feels like you’re watching a week’s worth of The Bill episodes condensed down to 90 minutes. Allen Leech as the main villain looks odd and eccentric, but he doesn’t really do anything majorly bad to make audiences hate him; it’s up to speechless thugs to be turned into the main villains, but then they have no personality apart from “he’s eastern European.”
While The Sweeney obviously isn’t a laugh-a-minute kind of film, humour does make up for the plot issues; there’s plenty of putdowns, one-liners, and banter just like there was in the original Sweeney, with surprisingly good comic timing all round. It’s hard to find a better comedy cast in a serious film, as all the reactions seem genuine, and comebacks are suited to the situation (there’s a few “big man” jokes at Winstone’s expense), meaning the humorous parts of the script get a well deserved thumbs-up.
Considering The Sweeney (and Regan specifically) are meant to deal with criminals and people from the law-opposed underworld, there’s not really much done with it; Regan does a deal at the start with a low-end villain, and Carter gets information from the same one. Oh and they go to a bar for one. But it’s not exactly going to a crime boss and doing information swaps and the like is it? Lacking really, and knocking the tagline of “think like a criminal to catch a criminal” down a peg or two.
As a re-imagining goes, this is one done well enough. The Sweeney has enough in the tank to appease fans and casuals alike, and whilst the plot is a bit horrible to sit through and the cast isn’t spectacular, the humour and fantastic mise-en-scene of a violent, necessary world just about manage to engage for the runtime. An OK start with a lot of problems, but further adventures with Winstone and Drew as Regan and Carter would be welcomed.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
