The Sweeney

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.

A poor interpretation of a British TV Classic. The Regan and Carter dynamic was central to the success of the original in this it takes a backseat to the tedious affair between Regan and policewoman Nancy who of course did not appear in the original series. Baby faced Ben Drew looks like the singer of an Indie Pop Band and the waddling Ray Winstone is far too fat to take seriously as a maverick cop and the love interest of a woman 25 years his junior. The brilliant Damian Lewis was woefully underutilised as chief inspector Frank Haskins and would have made a far better Regan. John Hodge, co-writer, and Nick Love, who wrote the screenplay, were children when the original series aired so it's no surprise they managed to screw up the remake so spectacularly.

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.

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.