STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
After successfully thwarting an armed robbery, Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and his Flying Squad team are still reprimanded for the heavy handed tactics they employed in getting the job done. But after a raid on a small jewellers, where a young woman is brutally executed at point blank range, the team find themselves thrust into a deadly and brutal battle with elusive and violent criminal Allen (Paul Anderson) who they will have to use all their wits to bring down.
Having taken a longer break than usual after his last film, the hugely disappointing (in my opinion, anyway) re-make of 1988's The Firm, Nick Love returns (or at least tries to) with a bang here with an adaptation, on which he fares slightly better, of the much loved 1970s TV series, updated to modern times, but losing none of the gritty, hard hitting style it apparently (I don't know, it was before my time) always had. The result is an unremarkable, under whelming effort that probably had the potential to be a lot better, but never falls below a certain standard that it simply doesn't do.
While bearing no physical similarity to John Thaw from the TV series, Winstone in the lead role naturally loses none of the cynicism and meanness that Thaw (apparently...remember) displayed, and is still a natural choice for the part. It's disconcerting that he's so grotesquely out of shape (even for his age), and adds a dash of baser, banal brutality to the part that loses him a moral edge, but doing what he's known best for, he doesn't disappoint. In Dennis Waterman's original role as his sidekick George Carter, Ben Drew fits his role more smoothly, and with his street wise patter and fashion sense, gives the film more appeal to the large section of the audience who will be too young to remember the original show. Hayley Atwell provides the eye candy as Winstone's much younger colleague, who's married to his uptight superior and, naturally, he's shagging behind his back. Finally, Anderson displays the most potential as the villain, but gets disappointingly little screen time to show his stuff.
Action wise, the film tries to go all Hollywood blockbuster, with an ambitious shoot out in Trafalgar Square and rounding itself off with a nifty car chase to collar the lead villain. While neither of these deliver like they could have, you still have to admire the effort. After a few years honing his craft and employing various styles to experiment with, this feels like Love's most accomplished and high scale effort, which doesn't make it his best but, you know, it's the kind of thing Americans like. ***
After successfully thwarting an armed robbery, Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and his Flying Squad team are still reprimanded for the heavy handed tactics they employed in getting the job done. But after a raid on a small jewellers, where a young woman is brutally executed at point blank range, the team find themselves thrust into a deadly and brutal battle with elusive and violent criminal Allen (Paul Anderson) who they will have to use all their wits to bring down.
Having taken a longer break than usual after his last film, the hugely disappointing (in my opinion, anyway) re-make of 1988's The Firm, Nick Love returns (or at least tries to) with a bang here with an adaptation, on which he fares slightly better, of the much loved 1970s TV series, updated to modern times, but losing none of the gritty, hard hitting style it apparently (I don't know, it was before my time) always had. The result is an unremarkable, under whelming effort that probably had the potential to be a lot better, but never falls below a certain standard that it simply doesn't do.
While bearing no physical similarity to John Thaw from the TV series, Winstone in the lead role naturally loses none of the cynicism and meanness that Thaw (apparently...remember) displayed, and is still a natural choice for the part. It's disconcerting that he's so grotesquely out of shape (even for his age), and adds a dash of baser, banal brutality to the part that loses him a moral edge, but doing what he's known best for, he doesn't disappoint. In Dennis Waterman's original role as his sidekick George Carter, Ben Drew fits his role more smoothly, and with his street wise patter and fashion sense, gives the film more appeal to the large section of the audience who will be too young to remember the original show. Hayley Atwell provides the eye candy as Winstone's much younger colleague, who's married to his uptight superior and, naturally, he's shagging behind his back. Finally, Anderson displays the most potential as the villain, but gets disappointingly little screen time to show his stuff.
Action wise, the film tries to go all Hollywood blockbuster, with an ambitious shoot out in Trafalgar Square and rounding itself off with a nifty car chase to collar the lead villain. While neither of these deliver like they could have, you still have to admire the effort. After a few years honing his craft and employing various styles to experiment with, this feels like Love's most accomplished and high scale effort, which doesn't make it his best but, you know, it's the kind of thing Americans like. ***