The Sweeney

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The Sweeney - 12/9/2012 11:45:12 AM

Empire Admin

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Post #: 1

- 12/9/2012 1:32:03 PM

jakesfake

Posts: 6
Joined: 25/1/2008

http://thoughtburp.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/the-sweeney/

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Post #: 2

Massively enjoyable. - 13/9/2012 7:06:34 PM

TheMightyBlackout

Posts: 90
Joined: 28/4/2012
From: Oxford, UK

As gritty as it tries to be, there's a layer of slickness that's constantly pulling the film away from reality. Armed robberies and gunfights with middle-aged men haven't seemed quite this cool outside of a Guy Ritchie flick. This film won't be for everyone, and it's pretty much The Ultimate Ray Winstone Vehicle�, where he gets to play the part he's constantly acting out in his head anyway. There is some amount of substance, but style definitely has the greater share, here. And how many other films have you seen whose finale is a car chase and shootout at at static-caravan park in Gravesend?

The Sweeney is all mouth and all trousers.

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Post #: 3

just awful - 13/9/2012 9:11:20 PM

bretty

Posts: 143
Joined: 6/10/2005

Oh dear, where to start? This was awful and a terrible reflection on an iconic TV series. A police team that are little more than thugs and not great casting with Winston and even worse with Plan Z or whatever his name is (he talks like a white gangsta and looks like he is 12 years old). So many “huh” moments where the Sweeney and the Police are reflected in a way that is so far from credibility that it made you roll your eyes in dis-belief. We have a London devoid of any people, there is less traffic on the road than there was 30 years ago with the TV series. We have no armed response units, we have a love triangle that you realise is going in a certain direction very quickly, we have arms trained Sweeney officers who can’t hit a barn door with their weapons, we have Carter introducing himself as “Police Officer Carter” (not detective Carter?), we have police id that looks like it was bought in a joke shop, we have Regan actually put in prison on an open wing (for no reason – he could have been suspended). It was shite from start to finish and was topped off at the close by the worst possible version of the classic theme you could possibly imagine.

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Post #: 4

RE: The Sweeney - 14/9/2012 8:27:09 AM

demoncleaner

Posts: 2155
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Belfast

Outrageously obnoxious chav cops working in executive surroundings and living in yuppy-ish banker's digs, The Sweeney is like the night nice middle-class boy Michael Mann threw a high school party in his mum's house and watched appalled as the working class showed up. If you like Michael Mann you may bemoan the insult and find this another British embarrassment. If, on the other hand, you find Mann a devoid of anything to say poseur cunt then there might be something sufficiently subversive in Nick Love's film to relish.

Since it's clear that this movie seeks absolutely no authentic emulation of real life cops I think you have to judge it on a scale of movieland cop credibility. As it stands I think it's somewhere in the middle, better than a guilty pleasure but too much manchild wish fulfillment to ascend any further. In the production design it flirts with The Dark Knight of all things, while not just content with a Heat flirtation, it actually takes it out onto the street with it's main set-piece and rogers it in full view of the appalled, cuckolded teenage Michael Mann.

After a major turning point midway through the sufficiently complex plot takes over, moving in tone from a British Training Day to the hard-bitten action third of the first Lethal Weapon.

Despite the seemingly cartoonish argy bargy of Regan and Carter there is a weight of naturalism in the performances that does become more apparent as it goes on. Ben Drew, was a revelation I thought, and he was very convincing in a "movie-cop" role from the beginning.

Not bad, but nigh impossible to defend it's flaws. It's as anachronistic at times as Regan. Full of modern visual sass with purposefully throw-back characters who are completely aloof from multi-cultural, recession hit Britain.

3/5

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Post #: 5

Wrong casting - 14/9/2012 3:50:03 PM

paulmitchell

Posts: 57
Joined: 7/4/2006

The casting for regan is spot on BUT carter sounds like a Chav.plan B was fantastic in Harry brown but here we are supposed to believe in a Chav sounding copper,for fuck sake we have Sean Harris who would have been perfect.i just hope they cast Tom hardy as bodie in the professionals movie.please don't fuck that up

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Post #: 6

RE: Wrong casting - 14/9/2012 6:48:25 PM

demoncleaner

Posts: 2155
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Belfast

quote:

ORIGINAL: paulmitchell

The casting for regan is spot on BUT carter sounds like a Chav.plan B was fantastic in Harry brown but here we are supposed to believe in a Chav sounding copper,for fuck sake we have Sean Harris who would have been perfect.i just hope they cast Tom hardy as bodie in the professionals movie.please don't fuck that up

Drew really impressed me. I knew he had directed a film, but I haven't seen Harry Brown and thought this was his first acting job. Carter as an ex-juvenile crim (an ex-slegg in Sweeney parlance) makes him an unlikely copper, but that's kinda the point of him. The only saving grace of Regan's character seems to be the recruitment and conversion of the young apprentice and I really liked the scene where Jack has him case the bank fully utilising his nefarious past for above-board security reasons. Carter seems to be the one-man explanation to the audience of why everyone in the team holds their leader in such inexplicable high regard. Plan B was cool man.

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Post #: 7

Worst Movie of 2012 - 15/9/2012 8:19:17 AM

umer_ejaz

Posts: 1265
Joined: 9/12/2005

Where to start in this overboiled, tedious, awful movie. Winstone I thought was a great piece of casting but the problem with his character is the dialogue was so hilarious it began to sound as if he was more of the baddie than an actual cop. I thought Ben Drew was probably the worst casting call in the history of movie making, he was so rigid, wooden, that nothing he was saying was actually coming off as believable.

(SPOILERS)

The second thing was when they did the action in Trafalgar Square with that armed robbery, anyone with a right state of mind knows that if an armed robbery is taking place you bring in Scotland Yard in with armed police officers, you do not bring in pistols and start shouting armed police. I couldn't stop laughing as to how they expected to kill anyone with pistols considering the robbers had machine guns?! Surely bringing in armed police would have been more sufficient so that we could get a good shooting match

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Post #: 8

poor - 15/9/2012 11:13:08 AM

mclane1

Posts: 349
Joined: 7/2/2009

given the seemingly good reviews around, this was a big dissapointment. even if you left your brains at the door it wasnt really any fun. I failed to see any real chemistry between regan and carter, very weak plot, poor villain, not gritty enough to be serious and not fun enough to be a popcorn hit.

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Post #: 9

RE: The Sweeney - 15/9/2012 6:32:31 PM

Adrian Veidt

Posts: 15
Joined: 24/10/2005

I thought this was very disappointing.I was in full agreement with the higher ups who wanted to shut the Sweeney down, they were appalling excuses for policemen. Also, the plot had so many holes I don't even know where to start.
The thing that annoyed me most of all was the lack of even the most basic fact checking. There's no such thing as Internal Affairs in the Met, and a policeman's badge is what he wears on his shoulder or his hat. His ID is called a Warrant Card or a Brief. That jarred with me every time they said it. Was it laziness or an inexplicable attempt to cater to a putative US audience?

< Message edited by Adrian Veidt -- 15/9/2012 6:36:28 PM >

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Post #: 10

- 15/9/2012 6:35:07 PM

Adrian Veidt

Posts: 15
Joined: 24/10/2005

My grade (forgot the first time)

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Post #: 11

Very VERY poor action thriller - 16/9/2012 8:57:36 AM

alsybroth

Posts: 111
Joined: 5/1/2007

Now that I've seen it as it stands, the more thought I put into this film the more my opinion of it disintegrates further and further.
With its repugnant right-wing ethics, the fact that the film's best scenes are copied from both Michael Mann and Chris Nolan, or the fact that Nick Love can't help being Nick Love with his cretinous geezer-worshipping. They acted less like cops or even bent cops and more like Essex bouncers with guns and badges.
Oh, and Ben Drew can't act. Period. In fact, everytime this fucking Forest Gate chav opens his mouth I wish the villains snuffed him before the film ended.
Love clearly wanted this to be the British Heat, but instead its more like his own Miami Vice, a completely wrong-headed, outdated botch-up of a crime thriller.
Give a few weeks and it'll probably be a one-star thriller in my books

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Post #: 12

RE: Very VERY poor action thriller - 16/9/2012 9:33:27 PM

Private Hudson

Posts: 1718
Joined: 30/9/2005

I loved The Sweeney.

As in the original TV show.

I actually had high hopes for this movie as London looks good in the aerial shots and I thought Ray Winstone would be a good Regan.

However, the script is all over the place. It makes no sense whatsoever. Ben Drew seems to find it hard to speak as I can't understand his slurred speech quite a lot of the time. And the villains, well they are underused and not shown to be all that bad.

************SPOILER********************

But I cannot forgive a so called fan of the show as Nick Love for showing Jack Regan to be a bent copper in the scene where Winstone pays off Alan Ford with some booty. Jack Regan is a tough, uncompromising cop, yes. But he is not corrupt. He has morals but this is lacking in this movie. It lacks heart and humour.

A massive disappointment and a missed opportunity. I'd leave it 10 years and then let someone with a bit of talent and brains do a proper remake.

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Post #: 13

RE: just awful - 16/9/2012 9:36:02 PM

Private Hudson

Posts: 1718
Joined: 30/9/2005

quote:

ORIGINAL: bretty

Oh dear, where to start? This was awful and a terrible reflection on an iconic TV series. A police team that are little more than thugs and not great casting with Winston and even worse with Plan Z or whatever his name is (he talks like a white gangsta and looks like he is 12 years old). So many �huh� moments where the Sweeney and the Police are reflected in a way that is so far from credibility that it made you roll your eyes in dis-belief. We have a London devoid of any people, there is less traffic on the road than there was 30 years ago with the TV series. We have no armed response units, we have a love triangle that you realise is going in a certain direction very quickly, we have arms trained Sweeney officers who can�t hit a barn door with their weapons, we have Carter introducing himself as �Police Officer Carter� (not detective Carter?), we have police id that looks like it was bought in a joke shop, we have Regan actually put in prison on an open wing (for no reason � he could have been suspended). It was shite from start to finish and was topped off at the close by the worst possible version of the classic theme you could possibly imagine.

Agreed.

You do wonder how some folk get gigs directing or writing movies if they can't see things like that just hack the audience off.

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Watch my spoof movie of FULL METAL JACKET here:

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Post #: 14

3 Star review! - 16/9/2012 9:37:42 PM

gb901

Posts: 19
Joined: 2/10/2005

What was Emipre thinking to give this dross such mighty praise?

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Post #: 15

Just good brit greater movie ! - 20/10/2012 9:46:23 PM

soulfood

Posts: 54
Joined: 6/10/2005

This movie has some goods scenes in this movie and good.
Performances from. Ben Drew & Ray Winsone.

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Post #: 16

WATCHABLE......... - 19/2/2013 5:45:49 PM

ROTGUT

Posts: 291
Joined: 14/7/2008

but be warned........this film bears absolutely no resemblence whatsoever to the classic 1970s TV series....... but I liked the niftily staged gun fight in Trafalgar square though - shades of Michael Mann's HEAT - or a direct rip-- off........THREE STARS.....

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Post #: 17

WATCHABLE......... - 19/2/2013 5:45:50 PM

ROTGUT

Posts: 291
Joined: 14/7/2008

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Post #: 18