SWEENEY 2, a thousand times better than SWEENEY!, centers on a strange group of bank robbers who steal only a particular amount each time, and never has a group of thugs been so cultish and family-oriented...
Oddly mundane scenes with the gang sitting at long outdoor table in their poolside home of Malta (each hit pays for exact sections of their expensive compound) gives a parenthetical glimpse into thugs who, once in London, become shotgun-wielding, nylon-masked marauders (known as "blaggers"), and the leader looks natural with that particular weapon in hand as Ken Hutchinson played the meanest of the bullying and untimely deadly STRAW DOGS villains, Norman Scutt, under the tense and ultra-violent direction of Sam Peckinpah...
In fact, Ken's character, Hill, is the most memorable not only of the thugs but The Flying Squad, our police team both movies and the series are about, and one scene has nothing to do with the bank robbing plot involving a kook with a self-rigged bomb in a hotel. Meanwhile, a side-story about Denholm Elliot as Regan's crooked chief under scrutiny is rushed and contrived...
Leaving Hutchison's deadly persona to cut through an intentionally sparse Neo Noir story, second only to a literally smashing chase where a yellow car crashes through a store window and goes blasting through the grungy streets of London. Too bad the action and gunfire isn't more evenly placed to curb all the dialogue that talks more than speaks, leaving the viewer wanting a bit more from either side of the law.
Oddly mundane scenes with the gang sitting at long outdoor table in their poolside home of Malta (each hit pays for exact sections of their expensive compound) gives a parenthetical glimpse into thugs who, once in London, become shotgun-wielding, nylon-masked marauders (known as "blaggers"), and the leader looks natural with that particular weapon in hand as Ken Hutchinson played the meanest of the bullying and untimely deadly STRAW DOGS villains, Norman Scutt, under the tense and ultra-violent direction of Sam Peckinpah...
In fact, Ken's character, Hill, is the most memorable not only of the thugs but The Flying Squad, our police team both movies and the series are about, and one scene has nothing to do with the bank robbing plot involving a kook with a self-rigged bomb in a hotel. Meanwhile, a side-story about Denholm Elliot as Regan's crooked chief under scrutiny is rushed and contrived...
Leaving Hutchison's deadly persona to cut through an intentionally sparse Neo Noir story, second only to a literally smashing chase where a yellow car crashes through a store window and goes blasting through the grungy streets of London. Too bad the action and gunfire isn't more evenly placed to curb all the dialogue that talks more than speaks, leaving the viewer wanting a bit more from either side of the law.