La squadra speciale dell'ispettore Sweeney

I absolutely love The Sweeney, it is gritty, violent and very addictive not to mention compelling and I never miss it. Then again, I am a huge John Thaw fan, having loved him since Inspector Morse. Sweeney! is not quite as good as the show, which is a classic to me, but it is a worthy film. The plot is complicated with some holes and the violence level did get quite shocking at times, but the location shooting is superb, the music is great and the action pieces are a real joy. As is the dialogue, one of the main reasons why I love the Sweeney is because of its irresistibly quotable dialogue, and here there is some really juicy dialogue. Maybe I am biased but anything Regan said stood out a lot. The direction is good, but the acting was really good bringing to life some very intriguing characters. The late great John Thaw is outstanding as Regan, and Dennis Waterman is delightful as Carter. Their chemistry together is wholly believable as well, and I also enjoyed the performances of Colin Welland, Barry Foster(actually didn't mind his accent) and Diane Keen. Overall, a worthy film with flaws and not as good as the show, but it is very entertaining on the whole. 8/10 Bethany Cox

When one of his informants is murdered, Detective Inspector Jack Regan is drawn into a deadly political game. He is soon a marked man and, after being framed, is suspended from duty. This doesn't stop him searching for the murderers and the truth.

A full-length movie spin-off of the popular TV show The Sweeney (1974-78). The movie includes the two main characters of the show, DI Jack Regan (played by John Thaw) and DS George Carter (Dennis Waterman) as well as a few other characters.

The result is a great mix of police investigation, intriguing conspiracy at the highest level and enthralling action scenes. The dynamic between Regan and Carter also provides some great lighter moments.

Not perfect - the plot does feel a bit holey at times and the ending is a bit odd - but it's still very intriguing and entertaining.

"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!"

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.

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.