The Sweeney, review - Telegraph Here, Ray Winstone and Ben Drew (better known as the singer Plan B) step into the roles of Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Detective Sergeant George Carter, grizzled lynchpins of the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad, who are investigating a seemingly unmotivated shooting of a civilian during an armed raid on a high street jeweller. Meanwhile, Regan is engaged in a romance with his energetically brassy fellow officer Nancy (Hayley Atwell), despite the pair having the kind of age gap that is not often seen outside of a Santa's grotto. Love is clearly a fan of The Dark Knight: almost everything from his opening cool blue panoramas of London's Canary Wharf business district onwards is strongly reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's steely-serious 2008 blockbuster. Regan and his staff operate out of a preposterous Batcave-like hideout, flick through surveillance cameras on wifi-enabled iPads during stakeouts and seem to have been dressed by French Connection. John Thaw's Regan had a word for men like these, and it wasn't particularly complimentary. Even Lorne Balfe's ever-thrumming score might be a spoof of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's work for Nolan's film, and comes complete with sustained, vibrating bass notes that are oddly reminiscent of someone dragging a trestle table across a church hall. Working within the constraints of an independent film budget, there is no question Love's film has a strong look - as well as The Dark Knight, Michael Mann's Heat is an obvious influence - but it is unquestionably the wrong one for this story. You can't fault Love's ambition, but cold and clinical are two things Regan and Carter are emphatically not, and the giant lapels and kipper ties are conspicuous by their absence. Still, it's fun to hear Winstone growling his way through some choice lines about taking no prisoners, not playing by the rules, and making grandiose claims about the circumference of his gonads, and while Drew is often detached to the verge of catatonia, his weak facial hair and contemptuous sneer both have a grimy authenticity (imagine Danny Dyer in the same role and shiver). The acclaimed BBC series Life on Mars struck exactly the right tone for this kind of thing: for all its skull-cracking and wise-cracking bravado, it acknowledged that this style of policing was no longer possible, for better or worse (and Love's film would certainly take the latter view). By refusing to make any such concession, The Sweeney is a film out of time; a reboot that feels more dated than the original.