The latest in a long line of television to movie adaptations
is a quintessentially British affair that desperately wants to compete with its
American counterparts. It’s glossy and polished in a way that the original
series never was and it can’t wait to let you know there’s more to British
policing than Bobbies on the beat. While Hot Fuzz has already played with the
concept of transposing this iconically American genre to the UK, this certainly
isn’t playing for laughs.
It’s played reassuringly, and refreshingly, straight with no
room for nudges and winks in this vision of London as a cops and robbers
battleground. We’re introduced to the no-nonsense Flying Squad (‘Sweeney Todd’)
of the title through a rough ‘n’ tumble conversation about the fitness of birds
before we’re launched into watching them rumble a heist. Anyone familiar with director
Nick Love’s oeuvre would be getting worried about now. The laddish banter and
casual violence are present and correct.
While not quite on a par with the squalidness of his
previous efforts, it does set a worrying precedent. Happily, it turns out those
preconceptions are mostly ill-founded and Love proves himself to be adept at
handling most elements of the film. He shares a writing credit with John Hodge
(who adapted Trainspotting to blistering effect) so you would expect the script
to shine through. However, it features more “slags” than your average knocking
shop and rarely rises beyond parody, which is a problem when the film takes
itself so seriously.
The plot is a bit of a slog and anyone who’s ever seen an
episode of a primetime cop drama will be miles ahead of this supposedly crack
squad when it comes to piecing together the evidence. It makes them look
lumbering and merely reinforces the notion that they’re all about brawn and
less about brain, which makes it doubly baffling when they seem to be based in
the kind of hi-tech, inner city foothold that would make S.H.I.E.L.D. blush.
In many ways it’s akin to a British take on Elite Squad
(minus any of that film’s nuance). Aside from the obvious police squad
similarities, it’s similar in its politics in that it suggests it takes a bit
of fascistic head-knocking to really uphold the law. It’s a glowing exaltation
of police brutality, without any attempt to analyse or criticise. Even early
themes of police corruption are quietly swept aside and forgotten about. The
film is completely in thrall to their machismo; unfalteringly in awe of the
methods they employ.
The problem with this is that there’s no outsider character
to lead you in and let you experience any of these methods through their eyes.
As a viewer, you're very much positioned as one of The Sweeney and, indeed, the
only real example of someone outside the circle is painted as an effete,
sexless prick from the off.
Ray Winstone plays Jack Regan as Ray Winstone and Ben ‘Plan
B’ Drew as George Carter shows that he’s really not much of an actor when not
required to look a bit tasty with his fists. Proper nawty geezers and armed
bastards make up the bulk of the other characters, with the exceptions of
Damian Lewis and Steven Mackintosh as pencil pushers. Hayley Atwell is
pleasingly given a role that lets her be just as hard as the men but,
unfortunately, that’s balanced out by also making her inexplicably fall into
bed (or, rather, a toilet cubicle) with Winstone at every opportunity.
All these problems are well and good but moot points if you
can focus on the content of the action instead. Aside from the minor thrill of
seeing exciting things happen in iconic locations, the action is a bit of a
mess though. A strangely bloodless shootout in Trafalgar Square is shoddily
edited and lacking in tension but at least the car chases and punch ups, which
made the John Thaw and Dennis Waterman version so iconic, fare better. A high
speed chase through a caravan park is exhilarating and the few scenes of
mano-a-mano scrapping are crunchingly effective.
"You're nicked" seems an appropriate phrase to
echo through the film as it applies to a score that’s
often eerily similar to that of The Dark Knight. Meanwhile, the second unit
must have struck a deal with Alan Sugar to lease b-roll from The Apprentice as
it’s hard not to look at the glossy aerial shots of London without hearing ‘Montagues and Capulets’
playing in your head while Lord Sugar informs you he’s “not looking for
arse-kissers”.
And
that is a fairly apt description of The Sweeney’s ambitions. It’s not looking
for anyone to shower it with plaudits. It just wants to please a post-pub Friday
night crowd and show that British film doesn’t have to be genteel. In that respect,
it’s a relative success. Job done.
★★★★★
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