Sweeney!

"Sweeney!" was one of the innumerable TV spin-offs which kept the British film business perilously afloat in the 1970s. For once this low-budget work did not spring from a sitcom but from Britain's best ever cop show, which made "Starsky and Hutch" look like "Sesame Street" with its relentless violence and raucous backchat. ("Sweeney Todd", it should be explained , is London rhyming slang for the Flying Squad, an elite detective unit of the Metropolitan Police.)

Jack Regan and his sidekick George Carter here find themselves out of their depth with a bigger budget and canvas than on the boob tube: they get "webbed up"in an international conspiracy to lower, or raise, or something, oil prices. A suave Energy Minister is too fond of the high-class "brasses" furnished by his American PR agent. He is blackmailed, with multiple-murderous consequences and mucho ketchup.

In some ways this is very much a 1970s period piece: flared trousers, two-tone grey telephones and no computers, police who drink and smoke heroically, ugly lowlifes, hideous pubs, tyre abuse, shootouts in junkyards and an overall grey, downbeat atmosphere which is a far cry from the Swinging London of Hollywood England in the previous decade. "Sweeney" was conceived at the moment of maximum crisis when OPEC was holding the industrialised nations to ransom, inflation was the highest for 60 years and trade unionists and militant socialists seemed poised to seize power in Blighty.

True, a red double-decker bus figures during one chase, but the film makes concessions to mid-Atlanticism neither in casting, nor by moderating the constant Cockney badinage ("leave it aht!", "you wot?", "shut it!", "dull it isn't" (mocking a Met recruitment slogan)) nor by glamourising its high-life scenes. Also carried over from the series is the endless friction between different law enforcers: Regan clashes not only with his superior but with the security services and Special Branch, the Met's anti-subversion arm. Typically, he cocks up the operation to snatch the PRO and bring him to justice. Regan is no superhero.

Contrary to what others have posted, I find Foster's accent and manner all too convincing, and his performance incisive. The theme of politicians being corrupted by their spin doctors remains fresh. Ian Bannen as the blackmailed MP looks and has a role not unlike Robert Vaughn's. Thaw and Waterman are the same crumpled reprobates as on the small screen, but the plot makes too little of their partnership; Regan is suspended and lone-wolfing it for much of the running time.

No doubt the best of "The Sweeney" was on TV, but this is a fair-value distillation and introduction. It makes the mockney gangster movies of Mr Madonna and his posse look pathetic. "Up yours, sunshine!"

Detectives Regan & Carter investigate the suspected murder of a prostitute and find that there is major corruption, blackmail and murder bubbling under the surface.

Sweeney! is a TV spin-off that further pushes the grit and grime that had been established in the hugely popular series. Boasting call girls, blood, automatic weapon carnage, more blood and lots of shouting, it does in short have most things fans of the series could want. It also serves as a interesting snap-shot of mid to late 70s London as various sequences operate in and around the old smoke. Yet in spite of its guts and gusto and nicely woven plot {incorporating the oil slant}, it ultimately sags too often and criminally under uses Dennis Waterman's Carter. This is really about John Thaw's Reagan. Fine for fans of the always excellent Thaw, but this was a dynamite duo, and somewhere along the way somebody made a poor decision to focus on one part of the team.

The cast is filled out with notable British actors as the story unfolds. Barry Foster {Frenzy}, Ian Bannen {Too Late the Hero}, Colin Welland {Straw Dogs}, Brian Glover {Kes} and Diane Keen; who was a star of many a British TV production. It's pretty much one for fans only, because you get the feeling that newcomers, although sure to be impressed with its toughness, will wonder just what all the fuss was about back in the sweary Sweeney 70s. 6/10

Just watched this for the first time, and it's definitely a different animal from the TV series.

Quite slow moving, with just a couple of exciting interludes, and possibly one of worst miscastings ever committed to film, Barry Foster as McQueen. Was the budget that limited they couldn't afford an American to play the part?

Nice to see 70's London streets, and the usual 70's furnishings and fashions.

It's a passable 97minutes or so, but don't expect non stop excitement.

A big shout out for the Network blu ray which is how I watched it, picture quality is absolutely superb, and the sound is as clear as a bell.

Looking forward to watching the sequel tonight, which by all accounts is a little more in the traditional vein of the TV series.

A no frills film in keeping with the series, the genre and the time.

This is a film about edgy London police in an edgy London in the edgy 70's. You could of course substitute "edgy" for "dodgy" in the above sentence and it would still be true...

For those of us around in the 70's it, like the series, is fantastically atmospheric. The hair, the clobber (look out for Regan's green anorak), the boozers, the motors, the women.

The plot is far less important than the characters who are all superb, and a particular mention for the young (and very beautiful) Diane Keen, and to a lesser extent Linda Bellingham - whose nudity makes you look at those OXO adverts very differently (or it would if they were still on) The film also gives some extra scope to the relationship between Regan & Carter, and there are some edgy moments between the 2, starting with their morning-after-the-night-before and culminating in the dramatic ending and indeed the film's last words. One of the many things I liked about the Sweeney was its realism and how it didn't portray its main characters as heroes but showed their dark sides and their failures.

I loved the TV Sweeney, for me John Thaw's (God rest his soul) Regan is one of, if not the, best TV characters of all time and this is an appropriate and very satisfying movie length "episode" Hollywood it ain't guv'nor, and for me thats what makes it the boll***s.

A great film adaptation of the legendary tv series. 'Sweeney!' was a milestone for all 'Brit' Gangster' movies that followed (two decades later). See vintage 'Jags' and Ford Granada's, tearing up the streets of London; plus with an increase in violence, to give it a more brutal reality. The complicated plot was criticized for slowing the action but the 'Sweeney!', remains a great sign-of-the-times piece. Sort of dated but in the most endearing of ways.