With 'Sweeney!' proving both a financial and critical triumph, the inevitable sequel - 'Sweeney 2' - appeared the following year. Troy Kennedy-Martin ( brother of the show's creator Ian ) wrote the script. His track record in movies includes 'The Italian Job' and 'Kelly's Heroes' ( both favourites of mine ). The director, Tom Clegg, was, like David Wickes before him, a graduate of the series, and also responsible for 'MacVicar' starring Roger Daltrey.
'They're back! Tougher than ever!' screamed the posters. Well, they got it half-right. Regan and Carter were certainly back, this time on the trail of a bunch of bank robbers who use gold-coloured Purdey shotguns and have a curious habit of leaving money behind in their getaway cars. The crooks are based in Malta, in a communal villa where their girlfriends/wives float about all day in bikinis. They are of the view that England is 'finished', which I suppose makes them Thatcherite, though the political aspects of the plot are not dwelt upon.
Ranald Graham's screenplay for 'Sweeney!' was both action-packed and tightly plotted, whereas 'Sweeney 2' resembles an episode of 'Life On Mars' on Prozac. It has some decent action sequences - the police car smashing through a window, for instance - but not nearly enough. Most of the time it is talk. Regan and Carter fly out to Malta at one point, but don't get far with their investigation, and you wonder why the sequence was included at all, other than to give the stars a free holiday. There's also a bomb disposal sequence in a hotel which seems to have been written in purely to extend the running time.
Anna Nygh ( 'Desiree' from John Sullivan's 'Citizen Smith' ) does an alluring striptease as Nazi-worshipping 'Shirley Hicks', and Diana Weston and Georgina Hale provide glamour, but there's little else in the movie of note. Particularly annoying is the waste of actors of the calibre of Nigel Hawthorne, Roddy Macmillan, and Denholm Eliott ( cast as Regan's ex-boss, currently holed up in Wormwood Scrubs on corruption charges ).
Other than the inclusion of the 'f' word, the script could have been done on television. The Flying Squad are augmented by familiar faces including John Flanagan, Derrick O'Connor, James Warrior, John Alkin and they go some way towards bringing the movie to life, but overall this is a hugely disappointing production. Unsurprisingly, there was no 'Sweeney 3'.
( UPDATE In his newly published book 'Shut It!' Pat Gilbert claims the crooks' decision to abandon Britain shows what a bad state it was in. Why would crooks leaving the country in droves be a bad thing? )
'They're back! Tougher than ever!' screamed the posters. Well, they got it half-right. Regan and Carter were certainly back, this time on the trail of a bunch of bank robbers who use gold-coloured Purdey shotguns and have a curious habit of leaving money behind in their getaway cars. The crooks are based in Malta, in a communal villa where their girlfriends/wives float about all day in bikinis. They are of the view that England is 'finished', which I suppose makes them Thatcherite, though the political aspects of the plot are not dwelt upon.
Ranald Graham's screenplay for 'Sweeney!' was both action-packed and tightly plotted, whereas 'Sweeney 2' resembles an episode of 'Life On Mars' on Prozac. It has some decent action sequences - the police car smashing through a window, for instance - but not nearly enough. Most of the time it is talk. Regan and Carter fly out to Malta at one point, but don't get far with their investigation, and you wonder why the sequence was included at all, other than to give the stars a free holiday. There's also a bomb disposal sequence in a hotel which seems to have been written in purely to extend the running time.
Anna Nygh ( 'Desiree' from John Sullivan's 'Citizen Smith' ) does an alluring striptease as Nazi-worshipping 'Shirley Hicks', and Diana Weston and Georgina Hale provide glamour, but there's little else in the movie of note. Particularly annoying is the waste of actors of the calibre of Nigel Hawthorne, Roddy Macmillan, and Denholm Eliott ( cast as Regan's ex-boss, currently holed up in Wormwood Scrubs on corruption charges ).
Other than the inclusion of the 'f' word, the script could have been done on television. The Flying Squad are augmented by familiar faces including John Flanagan, Derrick O'Connor, James Warrior, John Alkin and they go some way towards bringing the movie to life, but overall this is a hugely disappointing production. Unsurprisingly, there was no 'Sweeney 3'.
( UPDATE In his newly published book 'Shut It!' Pat Gilbert claims the crooks' decision to abandon Britain shows what a bad state it was in. Why would crooks leaving the country in droves be a bad thing? )