Flick Of The Day: The Sweeney

Oi you diamond geezer? Fancy a trip to the flicks? I've got the one for you if you can Adam and Eve it and all for under an Ayrton Senna. You should go and have a butchers at today's flick of the day, The Sweeney. So hop in your Jam Jar or a Sherbert Dab and head to your local purveyor of home entertainment so you can feast your Mince Pies on this big screen adaptation of the 70's British cop show.

The Sweeney

Ray Winstone, a man never afraid of playing the gangster, stars as Jack Regan a member of the old Sweeney Todd with a yearning for a Barney and a Bang Up and a proclivity for finishing his sentences with "We're the focking sweeney, son!" and "You're nicked mate!". Regan leads a group of old school cops with a penchant for clichéd dialogue and the sexual politics of a bygone era. Regan's main partner in (stopping) crime is George Carter played by Ben Drew while their unit is overseen by Frank Haskins played by Damian Lewis in upper class fop mode. Between extended scenes of Regan's illicit affair with a married woman in an impossibly palatial high rise Holiday Inn, he gets around to some actual police work. Granted this mainly takes the form of police chases, beating suspects and saying his catchphrase "We're the focking sweeney, son!" but he gets it done. Of course things can't go on like for this forever eventually a crime is committed and Regan and Co are forced into some investigative work.

There is nothing wrong with an enjoyable well made action picture. All too often I find myself being accused of being unable to enjoy simpler pleasures such as this in favour of obscure foreign language pictures and independent American cinema. However this is not the case, a well made action film can tick many boxes on the entertainment form. Unfortunately for all concerned, The Sweeney is not such a film. As much as I like Ray Winstone and his honest performances, this film is a terrible waste of his talents. The script is awful, plumbing every possible cliché to drive the film onward. The story is boredom punctuated by car chases. There is nothing original, everything feels like something you've seen before in better movies. It's big action scene, an extended shoot-out in the centre of London feels ripped off from Heat. The bad guys were rubber masks reminiscent of Point Break. 

This of course begs the question why was this film made? The Sweeney TV show ran for 3 series between 1975 and 1978 starring John Thaw, better known as Inspector Morse and everybody's favourite misogynistic wife beater Dennis Waterman. However that was more than 30 years ago, who was crying out for the jump to the big screen?  As with so many of these ill advised adaptations, it is something perhaps best left untouched. Nostalgia is popular because it shows us the rose tinted view of how things used to be. You never remember the crap elements, only the sunny days. Starsky & Hutch, The A Team, The Brady Bunch, The Dukes of Hazzard, Charlies Angels, Bewitched, Miami Vice, all awful television shows made into worse movies. You can add The Sweeney to this list. You're focking nicked son!

Flick of The Day: Hugo

Hollywood's current obsession with 3D is yet another gimmick to extract more funds from the wallet of the average movie-goer. Once can only hope that this trend will run its course.  Very often it is used as a substitute for good storytelling and it is a pleasure then to report that Martin Scorsese's smart use of the medium in his recent Oscar nominee, Hugo, never detracts from the story and doesn't feel shoehorned in as it has on so many recent pictures. One could be forgiven for thinking that the director of Goodfellas and Casino would not be an obvious choice to direct a children's tale set in a Paris train station in the 1920's, however the fact that the film is a triumph on all fronts highlights once again that Scorsese is a master filmmaker regardless of genre.

Hugo

The precocious Asa Butterfield plays Paris orphan Hugo Cabret, who after the tragic death of his father (A surprisingly non-irritating Jude Law)  is sent to live with his drunken Uncle Claude played by Ray Winstone who looks after the winding of the clocks in the mammoth Montparnasse station. After his Uncle's disappearance, Hugo maintains the clocks and roams the station while avoiding the watchful eye of the station's police officer played by Sacha Baron Cohen and also attempting to steal clockwork parts from the toy store of Georges Melies, played by a brilliantly cranky Ben Kingsley. Hugo needs the spare parts to fix a clockwork automaton which his father had been attempting to fix at the time of his death. Unfortunately Georges catches Hugo in the act and threatens to turn him over the police however Georges run in with Hugo leads the latter to form a friendship with Georges granddaughter Isabelle played by Chloe Grace Moretz and together they try and fix the automaton while also discovering the mysteries of Georges past.

This is a film with a big heart and a grand sweeping tale of the birth of cinema. Scorsese has always had a fine eye for detail and in his reconstruction of 1920's Paris, he is meticulous. It is a feast for the visual senses as much as anything else. The intricate clock work that hides behind the grand façade of the station is stunningly rendered while the imagery of the early pioneers of cinema is a reminder that this can be a whimsical and colourful art, something which can be forgotten in the race for the next big blockbuster franchise.

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken. "

The real emotional heart of the film is the tale of loss which binds the characters together. Hugo has lost his father and any hope of a normal childhood, Georges has lost his purpose in life and his achievements as a director have been forgotten while Isabelle has also lost her parents and even the police officer pines for the leg he lost in the war. It is this loss which drives them and the plot forward to its conclusion and along the way allows Scorsese to indulge in recreating some of the most well known imagery of the early days of cinema. In a sense, he tries to capture the magic that makes cinema that most accessible of art forms.

He is aided in this effort by a really stellar cast. When an actor of the calibre of Christopher Lee appears in a tiny role as book seller and is joined along the way by the immortal Richard Griffiths then you know you are in for a fine film. It is these small ancillary tales of life in the station that keep things moving along: Griffiths attempts to woo a fellow Parisian despite the murderous intent of her little dog and the budding romance between Baron-Cohen's policeman and Emily Mortimer's flower seller are highlights.

This praise is without even getting to the main characters of which Ben Kingsley gives a typically measured performance as Georges, a man deeply embittered by his personal failures much to the dismay of his wife. The child actors Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Moretz manage that almost impossible task of giving both a fine performance and also not treading too far into the land of saccharine.

All in all, this is a really lovely film and manages to hold its own amongst some of Scorsese's best work in terms of its visual sweep and the warmth of its storytelling. It makes uses of 3D without using it as a crutch and saints be praised relies on actors acting and speaking dialogue and other unfashionable things to tell its tale. A triumph.

Flick of The Day: Sexy Beast

British gangster films have developed quite a poor reputation of late, thanks in part to the oeuvre of Guy Richie and Danny Dyer but that is to overlook a rich history of tales of the seamier side of  life with classics such as Brighton Rock, The Long Good Friday, and more recently today's film, Sexy Beast.

Sexy Beast

Gal (Ray Winstone) is an ageing paunched gangster retired to the Spanish countryside where he spends his days idling in the sun beside his pool and his nights relaxing with old friends. All is rosy in the garden until like a Titan from ancient Greece, old acquaintance Don Logan makes a surprise visit. Don wants Gal to take on...One Last Big Job. Suffice as to say, Gal is not keen to go back to England and Don is most insistent.

Ben Kingsley gives one of the great bad guy performances of all time as Don. He exudes evil, and is constantly verbally abusing Gal, taking it to a higher art form as he rants and raves:

"Don: Shut up, cunt. You louse. You got some fuckin' neck ain't you. Retired? Fuck off, you're revolting. Look at your suntan, it's leather, it's like leather man, your skin. We could make a fucking suitcase out of you. Like a crocodile, fat crocodile, fat bastard. You look like fucking Idi Amin, you know what I mean? Stay here? You should be ashamed of yourself. Who do you think you are? King of the castle? Cock of the walk?
[He gut-punches Gal]
Don: What you think this is the wheel of fortune? You think you can make your dough and fuck off? Leave the table? Thanks Don, see you Don, off to sunny Spain now Don, fuck off Don. Lying in your pool like a fat blob laughing at me, you think I'm gonna have that? You really think I'm gonna have that, ya ponce. All right, I'll make it easy for you. God knows you're fucking trying. Are you gonna do the job? It's not a difficult question, are you gonna do the job, yes or no?"

Tense is the only word for every moment Don is on screen. Everyone sits in silence as Don broods, knowing he could snap at any moment, and he frequently does with disastrous consequences for all. The film lags somewhat when Don isn't on screen, but Ray Winstone carries it through to the end. He is made for the character of Gal, a diamond geezer gone to seed in his Spanish villa. 

This film is not in the style of Guy Richie's Lock Stock et al and is all the better for it. It has a style all of its own. It is well worth the effort to seek this one out if you get a chance.