Admittedly, this critic – like much of the film’s target audience, you suspect – is too young to have first hand experience of ’70s British police drama The Sweeney. Even newbies, however, will sense just how little Nick Love’s adaptation retains from the source material. The Sweeney in name only, this charmless, clumsy, cliché-ridden thriller could have been more accurately marketed as Nick Love Presents: Coppers - You’re Nicked, You Slag!
Ray Winstone and Ben Drew (aka Plan B, director of the far superior Ill Manors) are Regan and Carter, mavericks who don’t play well with other divisions of London’s Metropolitan Police. Their unconventional methods are used to take down violent criminals. The squad’s headquarters are in a London skyscraper, giving Love free rein to indulge his trademark visual swagger.
Alas the architecture is all that’s modern about this adaptation, as out-dated attitudes and machismo-fuelled violence take centre-stage. From the opening scene that sees the squad rating women on a scale of one to ten before taking a baseball bat to some unlucky criminals, wit or subtlety are entirely lacking.
The charisma-free Winstone stomps and bludgeons his way through clunky dialogue, while Drew’s confused mumbling similarly fails to connect. What you are left with is a celebration of thuggery that feels like an overlong and unrealistic ITV special. Avoid.