Thanks for the memories!

Instant Favorite.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I did enjoy the first film, but as an avid fan of the show I will say the show is better than both movies put together. There are many problems with Sweeney 2, but the cast, good moments of dialogue and decent direction do make it watchable. Personally I don't think it is as bad as people think it is, but it does have major problems and definitely inferior to the show and the first film. The first problem is that the film is dated, the location shooting is nice but the photography is not as skillful or as evocative and the picture quality is very grainy. Secondly, the plot is very muddled and disjointed and it does feel like an extended episode from the show, and does have issues of pacing, when it drags, it not only drags badly but really badly. I loved the concept, but there is a lot of time in the middle half when there are a lot of pointless and dragged out scenes. Thirdly, the violence, the show and first film do have a lot of violence but the violence here is quite extreme, I do remember the first time I saw this there was a death towards the end that I was really disturbed by. However, what makes the film watchable is some amusing dialogue, not a surprise really as one of the main reasons why I love the show and liked the first film was that the dialogue was quotable and iconic, the superb music and the performances and chemistry of John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, who are solid as rocks in their roles as Regan and Carter. The supporting performances are also pretty good, but Thaw and Waterman are definitely the best of the lot. The direction is also pretty decent, perhaps not as efficient as it could have been but it was solid enough. Overall, disappointing, but it wasn't bad. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Thaw and Waterman return to their famous roles in this theatrical sequel. This time Detectives Regan and Carter are tracking a group of bank robbers who always nab £100,000 and leave any amount over that in the getaway car. Regan is able to crack the case thanks to his Flying Squad team and some help from his corrupt, imprisoned former Chief (Denholm Elliott). This is a lot darker that SWEENEY! but still features some humor (mostly with Regan spouting off on hapless underlings). Like the first film, there are some shockingly violent set pieces. The only odd bit is a 15-minute detour where the boys go to a hotel to disarm a bomb. It is completely pointless, appears midway through, and reeks of something shot afterward to pad out the film's running time.

Regan and Carter, two tough London cops from Scotland Yard's Flying Squad, are investigating a gang of blaggers. They trace the villains to Malta where they are living in retreat from the profits of their bank jobs, but are unable to link them to their crimes. The gang however have one last job to pull off, but it doesn't go to plan.This is the weaker of two movies spun off from the quintessential British TV cop-show of the seventies, but despite being made by the same people, neither have the dramatic quality or the tight plotting of the series. The script is an unusually weak one, given the talent of writer Troy Kennedy Martin (who wrote for the TV show and whose brother Ian conceived the characters), which dilutes the bank-robberies plot with unnecessary filler and doesn't give Thaw anything substantial to do. The film does however have a good support cast of experienced British TV actors, and the tremendous chemistry that Thaw and Waterman developed over four years working together. And it's nice to see a movie which portrays the cops as drunken, bad-tempered, untidy, irresponsible, chain-smoking, fast-food-munching, porn-watching, on-the-take thugs. Neo-realism at last !!

A slightly rougher and (in the last 15 minutes or so) more violent & gory spin-off from the TV series but with no DCI Haskins. Instead we suddenly have some bloke who looks like Sir Humphrey off `Yes Minister' playing Regan's & Carter's boss. The plot is a bit disjointed in places. Basically it's about a gang of `armed blaggers' toting gold sawn-offs and alarming '70s hairdos who jet in from Malta every so often to turn over some London bank. But then halfway through, the focus suddenly switches to some French-speaking `geezer' from Beirut in a hotel disarming a bomb in his room. He has absolutely nothing to do with the armed blaggers, but we stay with him for a good 20 minutes as George Carter dresses up as room service, takes him a large Scotch and ends up helping him disarm the bomb while all the other coppers have an impromptu booze-up downstairs in the hotel bar. No explanation as to who he is, where the bomb came from and what he's doing there, except for later on when Regan tells Carter `by the way' that `the geezer with the bomb' was with the CIA. And that's it!!! We're left to fill in the many blanks ourselves as the plot goes back to the expat blaggers living it up on Malta and planning their next `job'. We learn that they steal the exact equivalent of $100,000 in every raid - no more and no less. But again, absolutely no explanation is given as to the rationale behind this. Then there's Denholm Elliot's crooked Detective Superintendent who gets `sent down' for corruption. Early on we're told that he was Regan's ex-boss and that the two had been working closely for years, but I don't recall ever seeing or even hearing of the character in the TV series (although I can't claim to have seen every episode and it's been some years since I saw the programme so maybe I've missed something). Like its parent TV series and similar shows of the era (such as `The Professionals'), Sweeney 2 sticks two fingers firmly up at the PC brigade, and that's still very refreshing to see in this day and age, when programme-makers seem to be obsessed with tokenism, `inclusiveness' and not `offending' anyone. Despite its shortcomings and plot vagaries, this is an enjoyable movie for those with fond memories of a golden age in British television and '70s nostalgics in general. A bit of a mixed bag to be sure, but worth a look.