2012
Director: Nick Love
Something I should really do more is to go to see films I
wouldn’t normally see. Sure it can be a bit hit and miss but I’ve been
pleasantly surprised with how good some of them ended up being. Even better is
seeing films I know nothing about and therefore going in without the tainting
of prior expectations. So it was a Sunday afternoon and I was unbelievably
bored at home when my parents announced they were going out to see The Sweeney and were asking if I wanted
to tag along. I didn’t know much about it, other than a few majorly negative
reviews. Dad wanted to see it due to his being a big fan of the original TV
show in the 70s and was hoping this remake would live up to his high regard for
it. To be honest I wasn’t bothered, but I bugger all else to do and hey, it’s a
free film- why not? It might be fun.
With the amount I know about the original series, going into
this was pretty much like knowing nothing. The original show from the mid 1970s
starred the great John Thaw and Dennis Waterman as two detectives. That’s all I
knew. According to Wikipedia, the title refers to Sweeney Todd, the cockney
rhyming slang for Flying Squad, a branch of the police which deals with violent
crime and armed robbery. With its themes of police brutality, violent crime and
the cutting of corners and bending of laws to ultimately get the job done, this
seems to fall within the guise of the Dirty
Harry imitators I mentioned a few posts ago. The Sweeney was supposedly
remarkable in its time for showing a high degree of realism as well as more
brutal and flawed characters and far more onscreen violence than any other cop
drama.
This time the main roles are played by Ray Winstone and Ben ‘Plan
B’ Drew as Jack Regan and George Carter respectively. Two members of the more
renegade Sweeney department, Regan is the oldest and most cynical of the squad
while Carter is his protégé- young but still with his own battle scars. Our
first glimpse of them is on the way to stopping a raid of a warehouse by an
armed gang. The banter in the car on the way there is respective of much of the
language and tone of the film- coarse, explicit and quick. This time they’re
rating one of the guy’s girlfriend out of ten based on looks; it seems
misogynistic but two members of the squad are girls and they get right into the
banter too so it’s okay… I guess? The raid setpiece that follows is equally
representative of the action in this film- shouty, sweary and with lots of shit
getting smashed up. The level of destruction in this is something I’d normally
associate with action spoofs or parodys but here it’s quite serious. When they
drive in the warehouse they don’t just pull up and get out but instead smash
through some crates and then into the getaway car, wrecking both vehicles. The
violence is rapid and brutal, with the whole realism-assuring shaky handheld
camera and jumpy editing. The action scenes are actually a lot of fun and
generally well put together, with a shootout in Trafalgar Square being a
highlight as well as some watchable car chases.
Although probably why they stand out so much is because the
rest of the film doesn’t offer so much. The plot is unfortunately pretty
feeble- the whole investigation is pretty slight with much of their progress
coming via informants, helpful coincidence or the odd bit of violent
interrogation which isn’t the most satisfying or engaging of stories. Frankly
it was hard to care who was actually behind the crime because it just wasn’t
interesting enough. I know this wasn’t going to be Agatha Christie-levels of
intricate pacing and deviant plot twists but I was hoping for a little more
bone for all the meat.
The main characters aren’t the most engrossing of leads
either. This is nothing to do with the actors- Drew does a perfectly decent job
and Winstone does the cockney tough bastard act he can do in his sleep which
makes him definitely the best thing about this film. It’s just there’s not much
to the chracters- Mum said how they were far less sympathetic than the original
duo. Much of their onscreen time is occupied with cocky self-satisfied macho
posturing rather than actual normal behaviour. Of course they do have personal
lives- Carter is an up-and-coming cop with a young child and a pregnant
girlfriend while Regan is an overweight slightly embittered man who begins an
affair with the distant wife of Ivan Lewis, the sleazy bureaucratic cop with a
vendetta against Regan and the Sweeney. Sadly, these side plots are pretty much
thrown aside during the second half as the needs of the case take over. Scenes
between the two leads are surprisingly lightweight although some were
entertainingly boisterous. For me this mainly comes down to the brisk dialogue
and their bloody need to fucking well swear every shitting other motherfucking
word. Yeah, banter can be fun if it’s done well which it sometimes is here. And
I couldn’t help smiling every time Winstone, without irony, would call a
criminal a slag.
My Dad said afterwards that this wasn’t a bad film but he
was disappointed with it. For him it did have the legacy of the TV show to live
up to but ultimately I agree. It was a relatively enjoyable if forgettable
action film which thankfully delivered on its main promise. I suppose it was
better for me than I knew nothing about the show; this was no more than run of
the mill generic action. Although in some ways it couldn’t help actually
feeling a little bit dated despite its modern day setting. The plotting, the
OTT shootouts, the themes of violent police retaliation and the debate over
whether these methods are superior to the red tape of following by the book
would fit better in the 1970s when problems within the real life Flying Squad
were making news, whereas here they don’t gel as well with modern conventions
of crime drama- such as the ethics of punishment or the focus on details and
technology in the solving process. Plus who actually robs banks nowadays? The
criminals break into a supposedly exclusive and private bank with surprising
ease which just doesn’t ring true. Again, it’s not a bad film (although there
were some badly done matching on actions which irritated me a bit), I guess it’s
just not a very good film either. It was made by Nick Love, the man behind
other such emancipated male fantasies like The
Football Factory (2004) and The
Business (2005) which work perfectly well in their own ways; it’s just like
this, they don’t appeal to me- beating other guys to a pulp isn’t really my
idea of fun.
