The last trip I had with my parents was in 2011. We were in London before taking a bus tour around Great Britain and some parts near Trafalgar Square were closed for the day.

On the distance, gaffers and dudes with smoking hot cuppas of tea stood around. One fellow was pointing towards St. James’s park to another fellow. That’s all I saw and thought nothing of it.

A year later and The Sweeney was on cinemas. I had a Cineworld card and watched both Dredd and The Sweeney, having sneaked a few likes for my popcorn. Don’t ask.

As soon as the shootout bit came, I realised I was there that day with my parents. I dunno, it felt cool.

The movie itself is what we would call in Mexico a “palomera”, that is, a “popcorn flick”. Nothing demanding, just a couple of hours for your entertainment. Blue tinted, as it was in style at the time, The Sweeney emphasises the outlaw nature of both Regan and Carter, but never quite comments on it. The Sweeney can do whatever they want and there’s no long lasting consequence for them going pretty much on a police brutality route.

The case they deal with brings both an old foe (for Regan), and a new criminal who is as unhinged as them. Trebolt is a war criminal who never respects the rule of engagement and the only true consequence The Sweeney squad suffer are by confronting him without any backup.

It’s an entertaining flick, just don’t think about the plot as it wants to do a couple of twists and one of them needed more of a build up to really land as much as the movie believes it does.

Ray Winstone mumbles his way through a few lines and comes off as a nasty thug, so, hey, maybe there IS some commentary on police here. Ben Drew (Plan B!) is serviceable as a too young Carter that carries the film where the plot starts to falter. Damian Lewis is a little underused and it’s a shame, since he is a great actor. Steven Mackintosh gets a thankless role as an antagonist from Internal Affairs whose only crime is being critical of the entire Sweeney squad. The movie does its best to make him unlikable, even if in the real world, he would be on the right.

I have seen the show and yeah, I’m taking this as I took the 2009 Star Trek adapation: popcorn flick. My parents never were interested on the show, but quite loved the movie and they found it amusing that we were there, so close to the filming location.

Lorne Balfe’s reuses some of ideas from The Dark Knight and they work wonders here, specially on tracks like Trafalgar Square, Aftermath, and the blood pumping Regan vs. Trebolt, which I’m choosing as my fave from this movie.

Watch it if you need something mindless while folding clothes or having a winding down sunday with your significant other.

-Sam J. Valdés López