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Shut It, You Slag: Why Nick Love's Reinvention Of The Sweeney Is A Terrible Idea
Yes, you heard me right, The Football Factory's Nick Love is making a Sweeney movie starring Ray Winstone and - get this - Plan B. Trouble is, somebody beat him to it. Twice.
We're in shock
Ah, The Sweeney - the TV show of the 1970s. Violence, nudity, car chases - what more could a kid/teen/man old enough to know better want from a programme? It’s so good in fact that it still stands up pretty well today. Okay, so the fashions - principally the women’s haircuts and the width of the ties and the trouser legs - anchor Ian Kennedy Martin’s creation to the decade where taste went for a burton (courtesy of Burtons). But thanks to the potency of the action, the efficiency of the story telling and the quality of the performances this celebration of the Flying Squad is the equal of many a modern cop serial.
Of course, The Sweeney mightn’t mean a lot to anyone born post-1980. But that’s all about to change. Nick Love, director of The Football Factory, The Business and Outlaw, is to follow up his remake of Alan Clarke’s The Firm with a big screen ‘reinvention’ of the show that gave the English language such memorable phrases as, “Shut it!” and “We’re the Sweeney, son, and we haven’t had any dinner.” And who has Patsy Palmer’s ex cast as DI Jack Regan and DS George Carter? Why, none other than Ray Winstone and - I still can’t believe I’m typing this - Ben Drew, aka Plan B.
Now, before anyone writes in to complain, I’m aware that Plan B isn’t just another of those pop stars who’s got on the phone to their agent saying “what I really want to do is act”. I’ve seen him in Noel Clarke’s Adulthood and 4.3.2.1 and Daniel Barber’s Harry Brown, and while he didn’t blow me way, he was far from unforgiveable. It’s not the idea of casting Plan B that’s a problem, then - it’s the idea of casting him as George Carter.
While Lucas and Walliams got a lot of mileage out of how he likes to “write the theme tune, sing the theme tune”, there’s no escaping the fact that Dennis Waterman’s a top TV tough guy. Okay, so his range isn’t massive, but if you need someone with tenacity, rough diamond charm and a decent right cross, Dennis is your man. He’s not just a terrific tough nut, mind. Just check out ‘Hit And Run’, the Season Two episode in which Carter’s wife Alison (Stephanie Turner) is murdered - you’ll never see a better portrayal of quiet devastation than the one Waterman provides.
If Drew doesn’t have a chance of out-doing Dennis, Ray Winstone’s going to have a hard time living up to John Thaw
If Drew doesn’t have a chance of out-doing Dennis, Ray Winstone’s going to have a hard time living up to John Thaw. Of course, unlike his co-star, Winstone is a gifted performer who’s been the best thing about number of films and TV programmes (his psychotic Will Scarlett made Robin Of Sherwood so much more than just a kids’ show). Thaw, though, was in a class of his own. Although he was richly rewarded for his work on Inspector Morse, there was more to the Mancunian master than being able to nurse a pint while carrying Kevin Whateley. As Jack Regan, his hawk-like countenance combined with a ferocious bark could at times make him seem truly frightening. But like most good people, even this most gifted of performers could never completely hide the decency within him. As such, Regan was often easy to sympathise with and sometimes downright loveable.
The Sweeney in a nutshell
Although his actors are on a hiding to nothing, it’s Nick Love who has the most to lose from reimagining The Sweeney. For one thing, rule-bending cops are now the norm rather than the alternative. When Regan and Carter started plying their trade, archetypal honest Bobby George Dixon was still patrolling the Dock Green beat. Now that The Shield and The Departed have wised everyone up, Love would cause more of a stir if he depicted a PC PC rather than, say, a constable with a coke habit.
Then there’s the small matter of there already being not one but two decent Sweeney [] movies in existence. Shot in 1977, Sweeney! (like what they did with the exclamation mark there) features a Who’s Who of British film and TV favourites. Barry Foster (Van Der Valk), Ian Bannen (The Offence, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), Colin Welland (Kes, the script for Chariots Of Fire), Brian Glover (An American Werewolf In London), Johnny Shannon (Performance), Diane Keen (Doctors), Bernard Kay (Doctors again), Nadim Sawalha (Julia and Nadia’s dad) - my, you even get to see Oxo mum Lynda Bellingham in the buff. Besides its cast of thousands, Sweeney! also features a compelling State Of Play-style storyline centring on Foster’s Alistair Campbell-esque PR exec and his attempts to corner an OPEC conference at any costs. Rightly famous for lines like “Alright, Tinkerbell - you’re nicked!”, Sweeney the film, like the best episodes of Sweeney the series, also features bit player extraordinaire Tony Allen as Bill The Driver.
Only an idiot would think of trying to give The Sweeney a fresh spin
Allen makes his customary uncredited appearance in the unimaginatively titled sequel Sweeney 2. Boasting a bigger budget and Ian Kennedy Martin’s brother Troy (The Italian Job) on screenwriting duties, the follow-up features a gang of bank robbers who use their loot to support an idyllic existence in Malta. Add Nazi sympathisers, a porn actress and a vegetarian police officer to the mix and you have a pretty heady affair, made that much stranger by the familiarity of the cast - Denholm Elliot plays Regan’s corrupt mentor, Nigel Hawthorne is the Chief of Police and Brian Hall (Terry the chef from Fawlty Towers) essays one of the blaggers.
Sweeney 2′s ace in the hole, however, is that greatest of all British bad guys Ken Hutchison. The wretched Norman Scutt in Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, Hutchison was the man you called whenever you need a hulking Scottish bad-ass. Awesome as Heathcliff in the BBC 1978 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Hutchison’s Matt Harvey leant some much-needed menace to that old favourite The Onedin Line. He’s also very good in the soon-to-be re-released Blonde Fist where he shares the screen with two of Britain’s most formidable females, the Scouse actress Margi Clarke and wrestling legend Klondyke Kate.
Though he looked at home opposite Robert Mitchum in The Wrath Of God, Our Ken never could crack Hollywood. Still, when Dickie Attenborough needed someone to administer Mohandas K Gandhi with his first of many beatings, chances are he didn’t chat to too many people before putting a call through to the Hutchison household.
So there you are - a never-bettered TV show, two incomparable performances and a brace of perfectly fine feature films. Only an idiot would think of trying to give The Sweeney a fresh spin. Listen to these excerpts from the Outlaw director’s commentary and you might agree that Nick Love (featured here alongside his actor-of-choice Danny Dyer) is just the right cunt for the job.
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COMMENTS
I have always loved that "Outlaw" commentary. Awful, awful men.
Love's films are not as bad as some make out. Remaking any classic is tough work though especially as it's also been dealt with to a certain extent with Gene Hunt's character in Ahes to Ashes. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. Hopefully better than Shane Ritchie's Minder.
I always remember Ken Hutchison as Mac Murphy in classic 80s kids tv show "Murphys Mob". Directed by Micky Dolenz, oddly enough.
Dear God. Nick Love doing the Sweeney? It's easy enough to simply ignore his usual abominable output but this high profile disgrace is going to be omnipresent. I'll be hiding under the stairs till it's over.
Winstone is a joke, same peformance film in film out. He is however quality in Minder tho as the buffoon Arnie. Never listned to Plan B, aint got a clue who he is, he looks very young to be a DS. Gotta a feeling its all gona be skinny ties and getting pissed in this one...
I'd never seen that Outlaw commentary before. Absolutely hilarious. Now I know why Love always casts Danny Dyer in his films. He's a slightly more eloquent version of the director.
Nick Love made a complete mess of the firm,abysmal casting with weak direction, no doubt this will be appalling as well, get out now Way Winstone, or you'll wegwet it!!!
I saw Sweeney 2 on ITV4 over Xmas and it stands up pretty well. However, this could well go the way of Channel 5 remaking 'Minder'.
Leave it alone. Ain't anyone in the film industry got an original idea anymore? It'the equivalent of a covers band industry now
Nick Love makes films for twelve year olds.
Whoever funds this dreck should be ashamed. Nick Love is hateful person and a talentless waste of DNA.
Ken Hutchinson's daughter was in my class at school. Whenever Sweeney 2 was on the box (and it seemed to be on a lot) she'd get a right ribbing the next day. I hadn't realised that was him in Straw Dogs, but then (despite the film being the stuff of legend when I was at school) no one could actually get hold of a copy good enough to allow you to recognise any of the actors. I think the copy I saw was slightly better quality, being Betamax (my dad was convinced it was the format of the future), but even then I didn't twig. So - twenty five years too late - Respect. By-the-by, Sadie Frost was in my elder brother's class, which is odd because whenever the papers give her age, she's apparently five years his junior.
You can't match the original Sweeney. No Way Jose. Every screenwriter should see 510 stage hero's journey over at http://www.clickok.co.uk/index4.html
Terry, I understand your point re Winstone but he's got some good performances on his CV. Sexy Beast, Nil By Mouth, Last Orders, Scum, Ladybird Ladybird and he was in Aufweidersehen Pet so he's legend.
Will Ray, in the middle of an arrest suddenly pause and say sumfink loik, "Old on! The next person to get a smack ina marf is on the screen nah. Bet Bollocks 'as got upta 16 playin' markits..Oooohhhh."
I'll fuckin' shag the lot of 'em, men women and children. They disgust me.
Simon, winstone has given some good performances, like u said the auf pet episode, also in FOX (1980), its just that after nil by mouth everything he has done is shouty
I had to stop listening to that clip of the Outlaw commentary when Nick Love started to compare the drubbing his films get to the critics' initial reactions to Taxi Driver (and if Love compares himself to Scorsese, does that make Danny faahkin' Dyer his De Niro?). Unfortunately, I didn't move fast enough I just caught the bit where Dirty Harry's good name got dragged into it as well. Given the paucity of non-Millwall tattoo-related facts on Love's Wikipedia entry, I read his interview with the Guardian instead, where he goes to great pains to mention his middle-class credentials (Kensington and Gloucestershire). Anyone want to bet he sounds more like Giles Coren when he isn't laying down a commentary track? As for Danny Dyer, well, hope that whole Kermode Headbutt thing works out for him. "...I would have got away with it, too, if it hadn't been for my pesky motormouth wannabe hardman persona".
As always, Richard, you can see the glaringly obvious that, sadly, the film-makers themselves can't. Statham's recent Blitz was, to all intents and purposes, a remake of The Sweeney ... And it was greeted with resounding indifference. Can't see that flourescent shell-suits would have improved matters significantly. Love strikes me as a person who has to talk so much for fear of his brain starting to work. If he thinks 'Outlaw' is a smart movie, he cannot possibly understand how and why The Sweeney worked. The Sweeney was a product of its time - it was a bold, brave programme, pushing against barriers and exposing taboos to a confused, deferrential society horrified and left helpless by the corruption it saw in its police forces. The Sweeney HAD to be gritty and documentarian to make people believe that there were still good cops out there and that the law was being upheld - at least in spirit. Prime Suspect was a product of its time ... So was Edge of Darkness (and we know how well the remake of that went). Remaking shows that exemplefy and interact with their period is pointless. Winstone's reputation still hangs on a sock full of balls (although the Nil By Mouth Winstone is FAR more interesting ... He's sighted only rarely) but he is too familiar, too dangerously close to national treasure status for Regan. When Thaw was at that point in his career he slipped into Morse's far-more appropriate shoes. Yes, Ben Drew COULD write the theme tune and sing the theme tune, but - by contrast - is he old enough to be a credible detective? Give him another ten years and a few more movies and I'll say yes. Such a galactically stupid idea will, of course, keep better, more interesting programmes off air. Which is a damn shame. Rich, I lav you to deaf. Now get canted. Would you like to know more: http://www.cellulord.co.uk
Here's an idea - how about someone makes a fucking film based on their OWN ideas? One of the biggest problems with modern British films is the budgets are hideously tiny. If, say, the Football Factory, The Firm and Green Street Homos had pooled their resources to make ONE decent film it might have worked. Instead we get shite scenes shot under abandoned railway bridges in industrial backstreets, interiors of crap pubs, and cringeworthy accents and implausible casting. The Sweeney deserves more than that, and the Carter character is just the whiff of the iceberg of shit that will surely follow. Cellulord is bang on when he stresses the pointlessness of re-making films whose intended audience is now older, old, haggard or even dead of old age. And if he thinks he can just set it in 2009 or something then he's a bigger cunt than me and you on each others' shoulders.
How fuckin dare all of you benefit seeking cunts slag off someone who hits the headlines with absolute cream of british filming (and by the way you have obviously watched his films)can you say such muggy things.Im shocked to consider nick love anything but the BOLLOCKS which you so truly show none of.TELL YOU WHAT YOU MOTHERLESS CUNTS DONT FUCKIN WATCH IT,CATCH UP ON STRICTLY COME DANCING WITH A PIZZA !!!!!
Eloquently put, sir. I stand corrected.
Shit film.Nick Love should be delivering pizza to strictly fans on a Saturday night.The end
Outlaw director’s commentary. Stunning A true auteur has his dag-nuts pruned by his muse. Thanks for posting
Thanks everyone. Hated every aspect of this fucking thing and nice to see I wasn't alone. Make no mistake, Mr Winstone's a gifted actor and far too good to be in the company of these Muppets. Therein lies the real tragedy. "Tesco voice over - how much?"
So, how's everyone enjoying Danny Dyer's work on EastEnders?
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