Sweeney 2
Original British quad poster
Directed byTom Clegg
Written byIan Kennedy Martin (creator)
Troy Kennedy Martin (scriptwriter)
Produced byTed Childs
StarringJohn Thaw
Dennis Waterman
Denholm Elliott
Ken Hutchison
Lewis Fiander
Anna Gaël
CinematographyDusty Miller
Edited byChris Burt
Music byTony Hatch
Production
company
Distributed byEMI
Release date
  • April 1978 (1978-04)
Running time
104 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office£65,076 (UK)[1]

Sweeney 2 is a 1978 British action crime drama film. It was made as a sequel to the successful 1977 film Sweeney!. Both films are an extension of the popular British ITV television series The Sweeney (1975–78). Some of the action in the film is transferred from the usual London setting to Malta.

The series and films depict a fictionalised version of the Flying Squad. The term The Sweeney is derived from Cockney rhyming slang, originating in the expression Sweeney Todd: Flying Squad, and is a real term used by the London underworld to refer to the Squad, whose brief was to investigate armed robbery within the Metropolitan Police District (MPD), an area roughly corresponding to Greater London.

The film centres on the investigations of the fictional Detective Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw) and his partner Detective Sergeant George Carter (Dennis Waterman).

Plot

A group of particularly violent armed robbers, who are committing bank and payroll robberies across London, are taking just £60,000 from each robbery, leaving behind cash in excess of this sum. The robbers are willing to kill anyone who gets in their way: they even kill badly injured members of their team to ensure they cannot inform. As Regan puts it after the first raid, "I've never seen so many dead people". Meanwhile, a subplot takes place in a large hotel, in which the Flying Squad deals with an eccentric man armed with a bomb (who turns out to be in the CIA).

A bent senior officer, Detective Chief Superintendent Jupp (Denholm Elliott), is asked to resign over allegations of corruption, and – just before leaving his post – instructs his subordinate, Regan, to take down the gang. The gang, armed with gold-plated Purdey shotguns, evade the Flying Squad for quite some time, leaving a trail that leads Regan to Malta and back, before he finds encouragement from Jupp, who meanwhile has been convicted of corruption – Regan having refused to testify in court for him.[2]

Cast

Production

Sweeney 2 is the second feature film based on Ian Kennedy Martin's original concept for The Sweeney. The first, Sweeney! (1977), followed three series on television.

Barry Spikings of EMI Films said he made the sequel "because there's a demand for it. The first Sweeney film was successful so we're filling the demand by making another one."[3]

As seen with Denholm Elliott's character, the film-makers were not afraid to face the fact that there are such things as bent officers. The character may have been based on a real-life former head of the Flying Squad, who had been convicted at the Old Bailey on corruption charges in 1977.

The film tones down the violence of Sweeney!, although it does contain more nudity and swearing, resulting in its release with an AA-certificate (i.e. restricted to those 14 years and over), instead of the X-certificate (adults only) of its predecessor. However, the film is nevertheless significantly more violent than the TV series, and was re-rated as 18 when released on VHS in 1987.

Nigel Hawthorne appears as a bureaucratic senior officer, taking the role usually played in the television series by Garfield Morgan.

As with the previous film, a number of the supporting characters are played by actors who had appeared in the television series, including Lewis Fiander and Frederick Treves.

References

  1. ↑ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press p 302. Figures are distributor's gross.
  2. ↑ Sweeney 2 at IMDb
  3. ↑ Mills, Bart (2 September 1977). "British money is suddenly big in Hollywood, 'right up with Fox and Warner.'". The Guardian. London. p. 8.
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