The Crime

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.

Having never lived in England, I never got to see the television show that inspired this movie, so I can't comment on how faithful this adaptation is to the source material. I will say, however, that there were a few points in the movie when the movie seemed to assume you knew the source material, since these points were vague and not really explained. But before I go on listing this movie's faults, I will mention what I thought was positive about it. The movie looks very good for a budget that was reportedly only around three million pounds. There are a couple of good action sequences. Also, the acting by everyone is pretty good. However, the actors are a bit *too* good at their job, because no character in the movie is likable. The main problem, however, is with the script. The script has the one-two punch of the story not only moving quite slowly, but being extremely familiar, especially if you have seen as many direct-to-DVD movies as I've seen. The movie could have been much worse, but that's no excuse to track down and watch it.

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.

My my. You could tell this was directed by a mate of Danny Dyer's. The film itself was so far removed from anything that would happen in the real world it was laughable.

Ray Winstone as Regan was basically Ray Winstone i.e. he went around calling people horrible names and punching or nutting them. The plot was paper thin and there were many examples of "how could they be so thick??!!" coming from my sofa.

Decision making by the characters was just plain ridiculous and then there were the continuity errors and/or just generally stupid mistakes. Regan is on the way to a bank robbery; it is the morning and the bank is open. Somehow he is able to drive along the Embankment in London at 60+mph and there is NO traffic. And of course people hid behind cars & furniture during shoot-outs and naturally were completely unharmed.

The only good things in it were Ben Drew (playing himself as usual) and Hayley Atwell (although she should have known better than to take this part). Even Damian Lewis obviously just needed to pay the Gas Bill, as he was utterly anonymous as Haskins.

Please avoid this utter piece of total horse manure. Watch an episode or two of the original TV series with Thaw & Waterman on ITV4. It will be a far better way to spend 2 hours.

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.