How's this for confidence? Months before the movie opened in the U.K., Vertigo Films felt so good about their big screen version of the cult Brit TV cop show "The Sweeney," that they got development going on a sequel. Now whether that actually comes to pass remains to be seen (it divided critics and really, no one seems to be clamoring for one) but U.S. audiences will get a taste later this spring when it lands stateside. And a new trailer has arrived to get the word out.
Starring Ray Winstone, Hayley Atwell and Ben Drew (aka rapper Plan B), the film is an adaptation of the beloved '70s TV show (one of the inspirations for the U.S. TV series "Life on Mars") and it centers on the hard-living cops in the elite Flying Squad. The title, "Sweeney Todd," is the cockney slang reference to their department– the branch of the London Metro Police who specialize in armed robbery and violent crimes. Following the usual template of this sort of thing, they will have to break the law and ethical codes of conduct to catch a no-good bad guy.
From director Nick Love ("The Football Factory") it looks fairly pedestrian, though the cast certainly livens up the material. Anything with Winstone being grizzled we'd watch anyway, and Atwell seems to have a particularly intriguing and ass-kicking role. A decent popcorn movie? That's all we can hope. "The Sweeney" hits iTunes and theaters on March 1st. Watch below.
