AT THE MOVIES
with Nick Stark
You can’t go back, the old saying goes, and after two hours of violence, mayhem and cliché in the company of Ray Winstone and the rest of the Sweeney gang, reluctantly I must agree.
I bow to no man in my appreciation for the original landmark ITV cops-and-robbers show from which this movie is spawned, which introduced us to the complex, violent yet reflective world of Messrs Regan and Carter of London’s Flying Squad, played by the incomparable duo of John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. The show was a huge hit in the 1970s, spawning two movies and earning its place in the pantheon of great British TV shows. With the current vogue for ‘reboots’ of just about every TV and movie staple, it was, I suppose, inevitable that the Sweeney would get the same treatment. And despite yeoman work from Ray Winstone as the proudly prehistoric Det. Jack Regan, and the under-used but always excellent Damian Lewis as his boss DCI Frank Haskins, the Sweeney is little more than two hours of extreme violence, bad language, car chases and shoot-outs.
Regan, we soon discover, bends the rules, beats up suspects, cuts corners, ignores orders and endangers the general public. But he’s also the best damn cop in the city (stop me if you’ve heard this one before).
There’s also a romantic subplot involving Regan and (surprise!) his hard hard-as-nails female subordinate, DC Nancy Lewis (Hayley Atwell), whose estranged husband Ivan Lewis (surprise!) just happens to be the Internal Affairs officer investigating Regan’s repeated bending o f the rules. As one reviewer this week put it: these stories were clichés when Kojak still had hair.
Regan of course inspires unwavering loyalty in his crew, most obviously in right-hand man George Carter (Ben Drew, a.k.a., the rapper Plan B). Carter has his own history of violence and criminality but remains ferociously loyal to Regan, who helped get him off the streets and onto the straight and narrow.
The London conjured by director Nick Love is a far cary from that which served as a backdrop to the original TV show. The 1970s London that Thaw and Waterman patrolled long before the Thatcherite-spawned rebuilding boom , was largely a world of derelict buildings, abandoned factories and seedy lockups beneath grimy railway bridges where chancers and villains scrabbled and struggled to get a foot up. Love’s London, by comparison, is a modern, gleaming, ultra-cosmopolitan metropolis, full of glitz, glam, wealth and opportunity, and the director brings a commendable flash and flair to Regan and Carter’s battles with some of its nastier denizens.
Winstone plays Regan as you would expect – cynical, hard bitten and monosyllabic. Americans may also find his mouth-full-of-kebab delivery a little hard to understand, but this film isn’t really for them. It’s for fans of never-to-be-forgotten original who hoped this reboot could catch a little of that old Sweeney magic. In this reviewer’s opinion, if you think it achieves that lofty ambition, you’re on your Todd…
The Sweeney. Starring Ray Winstone, Hayley Atwell and Damian Lewis. Directed by Nick Love. (Rated R. 112 minutes.). Playing at the Chinese 6 in Hollywood and the AMC 30 at the Block, Orange.
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