C
Having opened last year in the UK, the British action flick The Sweeney is getting a limited American release in theaters soon. Based on the ’70s TV series of the same name, the Flying Squad (aka The Sweeney) are an elite police unit tasked with taking down armed robberies and violently ingenious criminals. Members of the Squad don’t wear uniforms, but they all seem to share a penchant for black leather jackets.
In fact, The Sweeney do a lot of things in unison: crouch behind corners, brood, intimidate suspects, curse, smoke, and generally disregard anything resembling the letter of the law. Because they’re renegades; they don’t play by the rules; they’re loose canons: an entire elite unit of baseball bat-wielding, thug-busting, loose canons. Their hobbies include getting into firefights in the middle of a public street, not taking adequate cover against assault rifle fire, and being rude to innocent civilians. Gathering evidence, due process, common courtesy–these are not priorities for The Sweeney.
Ray Winstone plays Jack Regan, the rough ‘n tumble leader of the Flying Squad. Winstone grumbles his way through the role with pugnacious spirit, but his character is just as flat and predictable as the story. Winstone’s growling makes Russell Crowe sound like Laurence Olivier by comparison. Thick with working class British accents, everyone in the film sounds like they’re choking on a mouthful of marbles and look as though they’re pretty pissed off about it.
The film co-stars Ben Drew (aka British rapper Plan-B) as Regan’s young partner Carter, and Hayley Atwell (Captain America) as his squad mate and love interest Nancy Lewis. Homeland‘s Damien Lewis has a thankless role as The Sweeney’s stiff-suited supervisor.
Complications ensue when Nancy’s Internal Affairs officer husband begins investigating the methods of the Squad, with particular emphasis on Regan’s dirty dealings. One of the main faults with the movie is that the love story between Winstone and Atwell just doesn’t fly. It’s hard to believe the comely Atwell with the brutishly charming but frankly old and saggy Winstone. The film contains multiple sex scenes between the two, which is sadly of benefit to no one.
Between trysts, Regan, Lewis and the rest of the Squad are investigating a jewelry heist resulting in one casualty. Here’s when the movie really grinds to a halt. The Sweeney does everything in their power to solve the case–witness intimidating, brutal violence, long, drawn-out car chases and shootouts, brooding, cursing, more brooding. They do everything, in fact, except use their common sense. The Squad takes a good thirty minutes to come up with the conclusion that literally takes thirty seconds for the audience to figure out. The clues are blatantly obvious, but The Sweeney are too busy smoking in surveillance vans to notice them. With the audience several steps ahead of Regan and co., The Sweeney come off as the least elite squad of super cops, ever.
If director Nick Love wanted to ape the slick-looking, empty-headed action sequences of Hollywood blockbusters, he’s succeeded in spades. The Sweeney plays like a British version of The A-Team. The action is nonsensical, the characters are wildly irresponsible, the violence is both unbelievable and extreme, and it reeks of indulgent nostalgia. The hurdle for American audiences unfamiliar with the ’70s British TV show will be getting anyone to care. Movies about specially trained, renegade police are a dime a dozen. The Sweeney has little more to offer than any number of police procedurals on primetime television.
Other tech credits are just okay. The music sounds like it’s lifted directly from Hans Zimmer’s score for The Dark Knight and Inception. (Lots of deafening ‘BRRRMMM’ noises in this film). The cinematography is crisp and at least one action sequence features some good camera movement and a few legitimate thrills. Amongst the acting, Atwell at least brings some spunk to the role and Winstone’s commitment to the thuggery of the character is appreciated.
The Sweeney will be released on VOD and receive a theatrical run on March 1st.
