The Sweeney

Cast: Ray Winstone,  Ben Drew,  Hayley Atwell,  Paul Anderson,  Alan Ford,  Steven Macintosh,  Damian Lewis

Directed by Nick Love

Running time: 112 mins

A radical re-working of a classic ITV drama from the 1970s, “The Sweeney” arrives, part-written and directed by Nick Love. For readers/cinemagoers younger than the vintage original, “Sweeney” is a shorthand cockney rhyming slang for the Flying Squad (Sweeney Todd), a division of London police tackling the hard end of crime involving robbery with violence. They don’t use planes or helicopters, merely severely wasted vehicles and demeanours to match.

Head wasted-demeanour hard-case Ray ‘Knock yourself ‘aat’ son’ Winstone and Ben Drew (aka Plan B musician) tackle the lead roles of Jack Regan and John Carter, once the domain of John Thaw and Dennis Waterman in the small-screen version. An underused Damian Lewis plays Haskins their ‘Guv’ in the cast, but fans of the original, or advocates of urbane wit, are in line to be disappointed by Love’s Guy Ritchie-lite approach to this film.

What it does have in common with the 70s show is the same portrayal of borderline corrupt cops with a similarly marked attraction for gratuitous brutality, disgruntlement with their superiors, fags, women and dubious machismo.

Winstone steps into Thaw’s brown chisel-toed loafers, suits and ties, and dismisses them for boots, leather coats, two-day growth and a black cap, with a glowering growl through an at-times truly desperate script. Playing his streetwise young oppo Carter is Drew, who wrote and directed his own far superior London crime drama Ill Manors earlier this year. Drew is a tremendous talent – as a musician and promising film-maker, but his urban patois struggles as he tries to contend with the inferior lines on offer, although there are some flashes of excellent work from him here, despite that.

At least Lewis brings a dash of delicacy to his small supporting role as the Squad’s long-suffering gaffer, torn between protecting his edgy team and pandering to an always-superb Steven Macintosh from Internal Affairs who wants nothing more than to destroy the Sweeney, and Regan in particular.However the whole piece is a crudely drawn disappointment although the action scenes have a pacey resonance at times. Surprisingly the female Sweeney members, mysteriously find the bloated offensive macho posturings of Regan and his equally saddish laddish crew irresistible. So in summary The Sweeney re-boot is as empty as an alcoholic’s whisky glass and about as subtle as a dog-poo in the same receptacle.
 

The Watch


Cast: Jonah Hill, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Richard Ayoade, Rosemary DeWitt

Director: Akiva Schaffer

Running time: 102 mins

2011’s terrific “Attack the Block” dealt with a gang of teenage criminals in a rough London area who discovered that aliens had invaded their housing project, teamed up with a woman they'd just mugged to fight the creatures and save the world. It was fresh, exciting, funny and innovative. Unlike this pathetic attempt at a version, of sorts.

In this ‘film’, “The Watch”, Ben Stiller plays a civic-minded wholesale megastore manager who organises a neighbourhood-watch scheme, immediately after his outlet’s security guard is savagely murdered whilst skiving on the nightshift. He quickly assembles an utterly inept crew of three other men with a posturing pseudo-macho approach towards doing anything other than dealing with localised crime.

This gang features rage-filled Jonah Hill, money-no-object man-child Vince Vaughn, goofing it up in his usual tiresome schtick and the affable, cool, somewhat mysterious Richard Ayoade. These guys live in palatial houses, seem to have no actual job but still live a mysteriously wealthy lifestyle.

When they discover that aliens have invaded the store, using it as an operations base to destroy the world, they have to fight back. But unlike “Attack The Block”, it is an execrable waste of time. The script is dire and the acting performances are almost beyond contemptible.

It beggars belief that no one within the production team, funders or distribution network managed to grab the director by the throat to demand some salvage work on this tosh. It needed substantial re-writes, re-casting (Richard Ayoade, he who directed the excellent “Submarine” for example – what were you thinking?!) re-shoots, whatever it might have taken to push this sorry, sad excuse of a film into feeling like anyone was concerned about its well-being at all.

Stiller, Hill and Vaughn for some bizarre reason appear unimpeachable in the U.S. - but even if I’m the lone voice I will say it – all three are talentless, tedious, incompetent, loathesome excuses for actors and if I were a casting agent their respective backs would be black and blue from the pressure of ten-foot poles. Director Akiva Schaffer and screenwriters Jared Stern, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are all equally culpable for this gross offence.

You only have one life, so please don’t waste a second of it, or your any of your hard-earned on this utterly tiresome, unfocussed and unfunny guff.