User reviews

The dialogue was fine and the acting was fine, but I don't believe that an elite police squad, even London police, can be so incompetent.

Is it realistic that a group of police trained in the use of firearms should not actually be any good in shooting those firearms? The action scenes remind me of the old TV show, "The A-Team", where guns are blazing but no one seems to get hurt. Or, rather, it would, except that the bad guys have apparently been paying attention at the firing range. Surely in a real police organization, people who couldn't shoot straight, whose tactics were amateurish, who had no regard for public safety, and who had difficulty with the idea of calling for backup, should not be allowed out on the streets. More than that, I find it incomprehensible that a training program would be allowed to exist that produced such people as the end result.

As fine as the actors are, this movie does no credit to the UK police service.

A modern-day remake of the hit TV show from the mid seventies, this British crime flick has lost none of the macho swagger, hard-boiled action and dubious morals that made its source material a fan favourite three and a half decades ago. Following the exploits of the London Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad, colloquially known as the Sweeney, writer-director Nick Love makes up for his predictable plot (which has more holes than a bullet-ridden car) by absolutely nailing the set pieces - the public Heat-esque shoot out in Trafalgar Square is outstanding - and ensuring there's never a long wait until the next loud car chase, stylish gun battle or lashing of the old ultra-violence. Ray Winstone's role as archaic Detective Inspector Jack Regan, whose methods of catching crooks is under heavy scrutiny, is the sort of gruff, don't-give-a-crap part that Winstone has perfected - although here his annoyingly forced upon accent is often hard to bear - whilst Ben Drew, aka Brit rapper Plan B, is charismatic enough to hide the lack of depth given to his second-in-charge Detective Constable George Carter. There's not much substance to this gritty thriller, but with its finely executed action sequences, unrelenting pace and cracking soundtrack, it's a greatly entertaining simple pleasure.

The film has a nice look to it. That blue tint looks good. The actors within are okay but not remarkable. The story is utter nonsense and has no logic behind it. And then there is the action. These coppers are absolute useless. The scenes are comical and the logic is baffling. Every single scene the director allows the crooks to do ridiculous things just so the story can move on. You spend the whole film wondering if they are being serious. As for the A-Team shoot outs...heavily armed men carrying heavy bags outrunning coppers...oh come on. The sound is good, the film looks good but the big fail here is the director. He clearly hasn't got a clue! and don't get me started on the coppers ability to shoot straight. Farcical :(

Not recommended, pity

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

After successfully thwarting an armed robbery, Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and his Flying Squad team are still reprimanded for the heavy handed tactics they employed in getting the job done. But after a raid on a small jewellers, where a young woman is brutally executed at point blank range, the team find themselves thrust into a deadly and brutal battle with elusive and violent criminal Allen (Paul Anderson) who they will have to use all their wits to bring down.

Having taken a longer break than usual after his last film, the hugely disappointing (in my opinion, anyway) re-make of 1988's The Firm, Nick Love returns (or at least tries to) with a bang here with an adaptation, on which he fares slightly better, of the much loved 1970s TV series, updated to modern times, but losing none of the gritty, hard hitting style it apparently (I don't know, it was before my time) always had. The result is an unremarkable, under whelming effort that probably had the potential to be a lot better, but never falls below a certain standard that it simply doesn't do.

While bearing no physical similarity to John Thaw from the TV series, Winstone in the lead role naturally loses none of the cynicism and meanness that Thaw (apparently...remember) displayed, and is still a natural choice for the part. It's disconcerting that he's so grotesquely out of shape (even for his age), and adds a dash of baser, banal brutality to the part that loses him a moral edge, but doing what he's known best for, he doesn't disappoint. In Dennis Waterman's original role as his sidekick George Carter, Ben Drew fits his role more smoothly, and with his street wise patter and fashion sense, gives the film more appeal to the large section of the audience who will be too young to remember the original show. Hayley Atwell provides the eye candy as Winstone's much younger colleague, who's married to his uptight superior and, naturally, he's shagging behind his back. Finally, Anderson displays the most potential as the villain, but gets disappointingly little screen time to show his stuff.

Action wise, the film tries to go all Hollywood blockbuster, with an ambitious shoot out in Trafalgar Square and rounding itself off with a nifty car chase to collar the lead villain. While neither of these deliver like they could have, you still have to admire the effort. After a few years honing his craft and employing various styles to experiment with, this feels like Love's most accomplished and high scale effort, which doesn't make it his best but, you know, it's the kind of thing Americans like. ***

I'm old enough to remember the Thaw/Waterman TV series and my daughter is way too young but she's a fan of Plan B and there wasn't much else we fancied watching, so we gave this a go.

We quite enjoyed it. Our toes curled a bit in the Ray Winstone sex scenes and we giggled at the chubby middle aged Regan and his team chasing after the automatic weapon wielding gang with their little handguns ... and we raised our eyebrows at the overweight heavy smoking, heavy drinking detective not even slightly out of breath after running a mile, up and down stairs and through buildings .... so quite a lot of belief had to be suspended in order to watch this film. But once you got past all that, as a bit of escapist entertainment it wasn't half bad and although the plot was thin and the believability factor strained to the max, the performances were good and it definitely had its moments.

Not the worst film I've ever seen by a long road and nowhere near as bad as some of the reviews on here would have you believe.

It's just as well that British policemen aren't permitted to carry firearms if this is how they would carry on if they did. "The Sweeney" is about the London Metropolitan Police's elite armed "Flying Squad". In Cockney parlance, "Flying Squad" rhymes with "Sweeney Todd", which is why they call themselves "The Sweeney". They are somewhat analogous to the SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) teams deployed by U.S. police forces, except that the only tactic the Sweeney appears to employ is simply to rush in and shoot everybody in sight. "The Sweeney" is a remake of a popular British television series of the same name from the 1970s. The original starred John Thaw as DI Jack Regan, the head of the London Metropolitan Police's special, armed "Flying Squad". That was before Thaw moved to Oxford, mellowed and morphed into "Inspector Morse".

This time around the role of Jack Regan has devolved upon tough-guy actor Ray Winstone. Winstone portrays Regan as the sort of policeman who believes that doors are not made to be knocked on, but to be knocked down, and preferably with his head.

Not surprisingly, DI Regan is having difficulty with his superior, who is annoyed with the amount of collateral damage (i.e., dead citizens) that The Sweeney have been leaving in their wake. He is also somewhat miffed at the fact that Regan has been cohabiting with his wife, but that is only by the way. The fact that the villains are even more violent than The Sweeney does not seem to mitigate the situation for Regan. The villains in question are actually armed with assault rifles, for which they carry a seemingly unlimited amount of ammunition, as they blast their way through Piccadilly Circus in the midst of the rush hour.

It's all very un-British. There's not a lot of clever, cerebral detective work in evidence here, as is usually the case in British crime dramas. In "The Sweeney", detective work seems to consist mainly of arresting known "slags", dragging them into the back room of the police station and beating confessions out of them. Not once do any of these policemen say anything polite, such as, "we were hoping you might assist us with our inquiries". Nor do any of The Sweeney ever offer a suspect a cup of tea during questioning.

The language spoken in the film also takes some getting used to. Those who do not speak "London" fluently might require subtitles. Between the slang and the heavy cockney accents, it's sort of like reading Chaucer in the original Middle English; if one concentrates, one will probably be able to understand about half of what is said. However, those who like lots of destructive car chases and violent shootings will not be disappointed.

I liked this, it was fast paced, plenty of action from the word go with mainly realistic (mainly) characters.

The biggest flaws I had with it was the naming of the main leads as Reagan and Carter - it kept reminding me of the original series and in my opinion would have worked better if they had just made up 2 new characters.

One thing that did really put me off was Winstone and Hayley Atwell and the "love scenes" It kind of made my stomach turn watching overweight Winstone, looking somewhat like a Grandfatherly pig in heat - it didn't work and was just gross to watch, better left to the imagination.

The only other niggle really was the choice of Ben Drew as Carter, he looks about 12, tries to act more like Eminem and has such a problem in speaking English that he was barely understandable in many places.

As he shouts out as they leave the office - "Armed wobbewy in pwogwess!"

Other than those minor points an all round decent piece of film making - nothing to tax the brain, good entertainment.

Would love to give this good ratings, was hoping to.. But.

Opening scene was beyond stupid. The bit in the middle was daft as hell.

And the less said about the ending the better.

Great acting, just very poor script and the director should go back to film school.. (does a director not have any control??)

Note to writer/director.. Never give that kind of daft opening if you want to be taken seriously..

Or daft ending..

Or daft middle bit...

This is a movie adaptation of the popular 1970s British television show only the setting is in modern day and with Ray Winstone and Ben Drew playing the respective roles played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman in the original series.

Alone it makes a good action movie with one or two good car chases and gunfights. The storyline was reasonable even though its the sort you would see in an episode of the original series. Although Ray Winstone does well for himself, his interpretation of Jack Regan is different to how John Thaw portrayed the character if it doesn't lack any background. The interpretation of Detective Chief Inspector Frank Haskins isn't as robust as it should have been and doesn't get much screen time. Instead, a completely new character is introduced and appearing to have more emphasis than the Haskins character. One thing the makers of the movie did was capture bird's eye views of London which one could argue was a bit unnecessary. Even though a lot of movies have it and I personally don't get offended by it at all, a lot of the profanity in the dialogue was also on the unnecessary side.

I like the original television series but I'm a much bigger fan of movies, particularly action movies which is why I enjoyed it. I can understand that a lot of people who were fans of the TV show may not find this much to their satisfaction. But as far as I'm concerned, I got what I wanted from it.

Inspired by the British television police drama of the same name, 'The Sweeney' is Rough but Tough! Its a hardcore cop-drama, heightened by a solid central performance by the under-rated Ray Winstone.

'The Sweeney' Synopsis: A hardened detective in the Flying Squad of London's Metropolitan police, takes charge against criminals.

'The Sweeney' has a few faults & one in particular being its slow-paced narrative. The film unfolds lethargically in its first 45-minutes, which frankly, aren't captivating enough. However, the brilliantly executed action-sequences & Winstone's solidly stern performance as the tough cop, manage to hold your attention, even when these flaws pop-up.

Nick Love's Screenplay & Direction, both, are impressive. But his Writing leaves something to be desired. There is a lot of fun to be had here, but at times, the sequences come across as dry. Sharper Writing was the need here. Nonetheless, Love has Directed the film well & the stark look fits in perfectly. Cinematography & Editing are well-done, as well.

On the whole, 'The Sweeney' isn't remotely flawless, but its still a film to reckon with.

The style of the movie largely relies on sweeping glass and steel shots of London, while they're beautifully done and almost futuristic, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the opening scenes of The Apprentice they're so disjointed from the film itself.

The Sweeney are The Flying Squad of London's Metropolitan Police, tasked with cracking down on violent crime and armed robberies. They're loud, cocky, and vicious and, if the cases we're shown are anything to go by, very, very bad at their job.

Regan (Winston) is head man and a law unto himself, his sidekick Carter (Drew) and the rest of his special ops team are housed in a swish crow's nest of Scotland Yard with all mod cons. While Winston and Drew have an unmistakable chemistry on screen they really didn't have much to work with. Drew delivers his lines painfully slow, as if inebriated but you have to give it to the guy, he's not bad when it comes to fisticuffs. The gung ho ways and abysmal record of their squad attracts the attention of Internal Affairs, who are just waiting for a reason to shut them down. The wait isn't very long.

England's capital is largely deserted for the duration, which again beggars belief. There's a monumental hot pursuit and shoot out on an almost empty Trafalgar Square with just enough passers by to be pushed violently to the ground by both the fleeing criminals and the cops themselves, by the third time, it was comically so. It would appear that The Sweeney have been trained at the Storm Trooper Shooting Range as London town is shot up in relentless gunfire but not one bullet reaches its target. Think Hot Fuzz not Miami Vice.

The plot is convoluted, the cases needlessly complicated and for the life of me I couldn't get excited about a Serbian Georgie Burgess as the bad guy. While Nick Love is renowned for his cockney gangster offerings, unfortunately this time round he didn't think to bring either a decent story or a coherent script to the table.

The Sweeney is somewhat enjoyable but it borders on parody far too often. It's outdated and overplayed with enough product placement have an accompanying catalog. It would have made a decent TV special but for a big screen outing it's a meh from me.

Unbelievable tosh throughout. Terrible plot and acting, attempted style and no content. The soundtrack bleared all the way through which was the best thing as it covered the characters. Ray Winston is one dimensional - watch him as Henry viii - "I wanna ave a san" LOL. Repulsive sex story between Winston and a female cop. Carter was played by a plank. The Sweeney in the Met could not exist as portrayed in this day and age - 70s is where is belongs and trying to update it was a total failure in all departments. If is wasn't on free TV I wouldn't have watched it and I only continued to view it because it was so abysmally boring and amusing.

I would give 8, 9 and 10 ratings to classics like the Godfather or, actually Heat. A 6 from me isn't that bad actually. All I want from a movie is that enjoyed it enough to justify the money at the cinema and it did that BUT it could have been better. I hope that said, they make another one or even a TV series spun off the movie, the latter might make more sense actually.

Ray Winstone delivered as Regan, Damian Lewis was unexpected surprise and quality acting added weight as Haskins and I really enjoyed Ben Drew, Steven Mackintosh and Hayley Atwell. The fight scenes were superb with Ben Drew coming off as a very plausible tough Londoner but, the pistol vs automatic weapons scenes were silly. I did like the grungy British feel to it however, over laying 70s violent thug cops onto a modern setting jarred, Life on Mars got that ingeniously right.

The plot didn't really need mercenaries with automatic guns IMO however the characterizations were solid and made up for the plot, as did the script for the most part. I did care about the characters and felt engaged by them, albeit if I had been Ivan Lewis, beaten up and threatened, wife slept with and shot...I would have had Regan put away too. It was a bit OTT all that part.

I read all the bad reviews on here and first thought I would have to give this a miss but then I thought again and remembered some of the movies on here that had been given glowing reviews and how bad they turned out to be.... so I thought I would give this a try.

I am pleased I did, yeah its not the greatest movie in the world and some of the dialogue was sometimes hard to make out (mumbling etc) but on the whole it was a fun ride. The action scenes were well put together with the camera views and music giving a great gritty atmosphere but not to gritty to make London look bleak like a lot of movies do. The movie only cost around £2 million to make which in this day and ages is superb with moves costing ten times as much not being as good and the fact that it has made £4 million is great for the British movie industry. I am not sure if this was made by a British movie company but even if it wasn't (I bet it was as they know how to make money for a movie go a long way) it is still good revenue for the UK.

I am not sure why people keep going on about the main character (Played by Ray Winstone) having sex with a younger women was so terrible and funny etc. This DOES happen in real life I personally have seen this many times so not really far fetched.

On the whole an enjoyable action movie which did not cost the earth to make and was a good nights entertainment. Plus I am old enough to remember the original Sweeney and this does not damage the memory of that

One last point... DONG take the reviews on here to seriously. Use them as a rough guide but always watch the movie yourself.

I had not heard / have not seen the TV-series, so I watched the film as a separate crime thriller - due to Ray Winstone's participation - and have no comparison or assessment moments with the series. In my opinion, the film is mostly credible, with some moments to please the audience thirst after fast variable chases and shootings. Main characters are elaborated as well, and Ray Winstone as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Ben Drew as Detective Constable George Carter provide strong and memorable performances (I have always liked Winstone, but Drew was new to me). Unlike in most U.S. films, "good guys" get killed too, triggering in turn new wild events full of grief and revenge.

If you are not stuck into Inspector Morse or Midsomer Murders type of British series, then you may like The Sweeney - but here nothing is nice, neither people nor surroundings...

This movie is absolutely sh-t. It is a disgrace to the late, great, John Thaw and the writers, producers directors and rest of the cast of the original Sweeney. There is about 3 lines of plot and about 5 minutes that is understandable. The characters have no depth and Regan seems to be a murder obsessed thug with Carter being as thick as 30 planks. The actors have no talent at all. One gets the feeling that the writer wrote this during a severe hang over. Seriously if I was on a 12 hour pane trip and there was nothing to do but watch this movie or a golf championship, I would become an avid golf follower. To quote The Guardian's review: "The writer Ian Kennedy-Martin based the original television series The Sweeney on the hard-drinking escapades and questionable methods of a real-life Flying Squad copper, but this remake doesn't feel like it's based on anything remotely real. It doesn't even feel like it's based on The Sweeney."

I remember the original TV series with fondness, a low budget but gutsy, urban, gritty cop show. If you've ever seen The Shield or Life on Mars you have an idea of the kind of show it show it was.

What the makers thought they were getting from this show I do not know. The title is the only thing this movie has in common with the original. This is a very slickly affair with cinematography befitting a sic-fi movie. The musical score is straight from Nolan's Batman, and most of the action seems to happen in country lanes and yacht docks when it should have been happening on the streets of London. The scenes that do happen on the streets of London show a bizarre deserted version of London I've never seen, not even at 3 in the morning. The story and the acting are not worth mentioning.

The plot to the movie is straight out of an American action movie which is a real shame. If you've never seen the original or even heard of it then you probably think it's a passable action movie. However as there was such an opportunity to do something uniquely British and original here it is a huge disappointment. It just goes to show that Hollywood are not the only ones that produce hackneyed crap.

Nick Love is a man with a lot of baggage . His OUTLAW DVD commentary with Danny Dyer has passed in to legend and that's not meant as a compliment . In short if Love made something of the standard of GONE WITH THE WIND or CITIZEN KANE the critics would still hate him and his movies. Of course there's very little danger of Nick Love ever making a movie masterpiece , he's not Godard or Wyler or Welles or even Danny Boyle but as someone who makes movies for British lads he's more than competent . Indeed there's a bizarre irony that this might qualify him as an autuer of sorts . Who better then to bring a classic Brit TV show to the screen ?

Well THE SWEENEY was and remains one of the greatest TV shows Britain has ever produced . Unfortunately despite having protagonists called Regan , Carter and Haskins who work for - Sweeney Todd - The Flying Squad they're not really the people we know from the TV series . Regan and Carter are a couple of detectives who are rough diamondswho bend the rules but the incisive blackly comical aspects to their characters is conspicous by its absence . They're not the same people and it's not just down to their not being played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman

That said the film is carried by the cast . Ray Winstone has made a career of playing the same cockney hardman for over 30 years and who better to play a violent anti hero than Winstone ? There's even a post modernist scene where he puts a bunch of battaries in to a sock mirroring his breakthrough role in SCUM . Ben Drew effectively resurrects his role from HARRY BROWN except this time he's working for the law and he's very good as Winstone's sidekick . Somewhat disappointing is Damien Lewis as Frank Haskins because he's given very little to do but since Lewis is a relatively big name in American television you can understand he's cast as a selling point to a US market

If there's a serious problem to the movie then it's to do with plot holes . Several times you'll be falling out of your chair saying " Wait a minute don't criminals have access to lawyers ? " or " Don't you appear before a judge if you're remanded in custody ? " but in fairness to Love you don't really notice these deficences as the director ratches up the action and violence . Ignore the plot holes and you'll have a good time at the cinema watching an enthralling and involving British action thriller which is all too rare these days

Does this movie have flaws? Are the characters having trouble in more than one way? Relationships are all over the place? Some people do not get enough screen time? Yes to all those questions. Does this on the other hand have a great mystery beginning, where you might not know what is going on and who is actually doing what? Yes and that confusion is great, because it could make you more aware of the movie. That is if you go completely unaware into the whole experience.

As always, I had not read anything about the plot, so I didn't know who the characters where and what their relationship towards each other would be. The really good actors help elevate this and make it able for the viewer to overlook a few flaws. Action scenes are really good (especially one concerning a very famous location in London, and if you listen to the commentary on how they shot it, you'll be even more amazed).

Not everyones cup of tea, but hopefully you can enjoy it as much as I did and as much as the filmmakers intended you to.