"You gotta act like a criminal to catch one," growls Flying Squad hard man DI Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) as he apprehends a gang of armed robbers with old-fashioned brutality in Nick Love's revamp of the classic 1970s TV series starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. In the same way that the daredevil antics of Riggs and Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon put a fictional gloss on life on the streets for the LAPD, The Sweeney is completely divorced from the reality of modern policing in London. Car chases careen through the shimmering glass and metal structures of Canary Wharf at dizzying speed to the pounding beat of Lorne Balfe's score and a shoot-out in Trafalgar Square leaves ancient monuments riddled with bullet holes.
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