'The Sweeney' dir. Nick Love

'Hold up, I haven't been an 'ard man in a gritty British action film in a couple of years,' I can imagine Ray Winstone saying on the set of his latest betting advert.

A few well placed calls later and here we have it. Let's face it, if they were ever going to remake 'The Sweeney' - a vaguely chauvenistic 70's TV police series with John Thaw and Dennis Waterman then Ray was always going to be the likeliest man to play the guv'na Jack Regan.

And the opening scenes are promising as Regan and his flying squad take out various armed gangs in a series of absurdly violent operations. Add to that a hard pressed commander Frank Haskins (Damian Lewis) being pushed by straight laced internal investigator Ivan Lewis (played with relish by Steven Mackintosh) and we have a recipe for a very respectable evening of entertainment.

Unfortunately, there are some elements of the plot that seem a little beyond belief such as the ongoing affair between Regan and Nancy (Hayley Attwell). Perhaps this is just a nagging doubt but it does seem that she could do a bit better than an alcoholic used up old cop in his late fifties.

Nor does it seem likely that she would be married to the aforementioned Ivan Lewis - surely the dullest police character ever created and strongly reminiscent of Dwayne T. Robinson from the original Die Hard film.

The rest of the flying squad are given little screen time with the exception of George Carter (Ben Drew) who is a converted teenage miscreant with a ridiculously expensive flat. Beyond the occasional meditation on how his new life is not so very different to his old one he is really not given that much to do.

That is, until the final act, when the plot slightly goes AWOL and Regan is put in a nasty situation by the straight laced internal investigator Ivan. At this point the usual message of these films kicks in 'he may not play by the rules but, by God, he gets results' and it plays out accordingly.

So, this ending was comforting in its familiarity but slightly frustrating for all that. If it had gone for something a little different - perhaps playing a little more strongly on the police corruption angle then it may have made a greater impact. Nonetheless, it was a solid Saturday night of entertainment and I am almost certain that I will be reviewing the sequel at some point in the not too distant future.