The Sweeney - Danny Dyer Where Are You?

I have a question, why didn't they use the famous theme music in the recent rejigged, re imagined (add the re of your choice here) The Sweeney? It's coming out on DVD and Blu Ray soon so we can once again ask ourselves 'Why didn't they use the music?' A great theme can boost any scene, look how well they employ it in the Mission Impossible films and even the Star Trek reboot used the classic theme over the end titles. Plus The Sweeney (the original one) had two great pieces of music, the rousing opening that always got you bobbing along and the moody, melancholic theme that closed the show. A couple of memorable tunes, but I can't recall one moment of Lorne Balfe's (I had to look that up) film score. Let's face it that wasn't the only thing wrong with Nick Love's incarnation of The Sweeney was it? 

The characters themselves bore very little resemblance to their 70's counterparts. Take away the names Regan, Carter and Haskins and you have a British crime thriller that probably wouldn't have got made. Ray Winston's, Regan was much closer to Vic Mackey of The Shield than John Thaw's original. Ben Drew, well the poor soul must've been exhausted from serenading all those Bulmers customers, because his semi-comatose performance was a million miles from Dennis Waterman's tough, conscientious Carter. It's just a shame Danny Dyer's stock has fallen so low, if Nick Love had made The Sweeney directly after The Business, Danny Dyer would have been a first rate Carter and perhaps saved him from the straight to DVD & Poundland hell he finds himself in. You also have to feel sorry for Damien Lewis as Haskins, he turns up gives us his best Basil Exposition then disappears. 

A decent majority of the television series had good, solid stories and, even though only an hour long, tough, memorable villains. The film version can boast  neither of these. There is no plot just a lot of running around and silly twists. Regan ends up in jail, only to be sprung so quickly,and easily, that it makes Prison Break look like a biting documentary on the penal system. And the villains would be safe in a line up, because they are so unmemorable no one would be able to recall their faces.

But credit where credit's due, the shoot out in Trafalgar Square was very good, a nice place to have the famous theme, they could even get that bloke from Plan B to mess about with it, and the climax on a caravan site was unusual, to say the least. But, all in all, The Sweeney was a bit of a missed opportunity. If you want to see a proper Sweeney film try watching the 1978 Sweeney 2.

Over