DVD
The Sweeney
DVD double feature

Starring: John Thaw, Dennis Waterman, Barry Foster, Ian Bannen, Colin Welland, Diane Keen and Denholm Elliott
Warner Home Video
RRP £15.99
D038490
Certificate: 18
Available now


There's something nasty at the heart of government - foreign agents are working to undermine a cabinet minister in order to fix the price of oil. Along the way people get hurt, things get broken and people jump out of cars shouting and fighting...

Turning The Sweeney into a film must have seemed like a good idea at the time as the show was riding high in the popularity stakes. However, the transfer to the big screen was also accompanied by an upping in the villain stakes which undermines much of the charm of the show. Instead of it being about seedy coppers fighting seedy criminals Sweeney! takes to the international stage and promptly looses it.

Thaw and Waterman are once again excellent as Regan and Carter but at times their grubby antics seem to belong in another film - a good one - because at heart Sweeney! is a bit of a stinker. There just isn't enough plot to go around and the padding slows proceedings to a grind by mid way through the action.

On the plus side, Regan gets to be his nasty best and the finale is first class; could Regan get any nastier? But overall this is a poor attempt at bringing a great show to your local cinema.

However, Sweeney! performed well at the box office and so we got Sweeney 2 which just ended up proving what the first film did - Regan and Carter work best on TV. This plotless mess meanders around for 90 minutes with no great intention. Regan and Carter get to travel abroad, which might have been nice for the actors, but taken out of Hammersmith the duo look slightly silly. Bad suits in the sun doesn't make for great entertainment.

So do you buy this disc? Yes, because The Sweeney, even at its worst, still has it moments, even if here they're few and far between. Roll on the box sets of the TV series.

Anthony Clark

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