Back in the 1970s, The Sweeney reconstructed British cop shows away from their cosy roots and delivered hard, violent and surprisingly thoughtful action with stories that were morally complex and challenging. The series spawned two films, the first of which is great, the second merely very good. And although widely mocked by idiots, the shows still stand up well. So any remake was always going to have to pull out all the stops to impress. Handing the project to Britain's worst film maker was therefore a bad move, and sure enough, The Sweeney 2012 is quite stunningly bad.

The plot revolves around Flying Squad coppers Regan and Carter, who are trying to capture the villain responsible for a series of armed robberies. Regan is also being investigated by internal affairs (because God knows, that old storyline never wears thin) because of his brutal methods and corruption. And... shoot outs, and car chases and swearing and cockney male bonding. That's it really. The film has a paper-thin plot and is so dreadful that you won't care enough about what is happening, who is who or what is going to happen.

In the TV series, Regan was a tough, cynical bastard but you knew he was, ultimately, an honest cop who played outside the rules but had no time for corruption. Here, he's just a cunt with no redeeming features (unless you're impressed by 'geezers') who deserves everything bad that happens to him. But then, that's true of just about everyone in the film – even by British crime film standards, this is a sorry collection of awful cockney wankers who can barely string a sentence together. If you take the word 'fuck' out of this film, you'd probably reduce the running time by half. And you can hardly accuse us at Strange Things of being easily offended by a few rude words, so if we say it's excessive, then believe us – it is.

The quality team of John Thaw and Dennis Waterman is now replaced by Ray Winstone, who is spectacularly bad even by his own not exactly high standards, and Ben Drew, who's mumbling blank-eyed performance almost makes you wish he'd stuck to his dismal recording career. He can't act, has zero personality and delivers his dialogue so incoherently that you'll be reaching for the subtitle button. But hell, if he's supposed to be playing a complete moron, then job done. They fit in well with a cast that is uniformly rubbish, though – not helped by the clumsy dialogue, admittedly. Everyone is so one dimensional, so cartoonishly hackneyed and so under-developed that you won't give a damn what happens to them. And the film is so weakly plotted that all the noise and fury, car chases and shoot outs can't prevent it from simply being boring. This is 108 minutes that feels more like three hours.

The whole film is filmed with a blue wash that is presumably supposed to give it a sense of style but just looks crap. It has no dramatic tension, nothing to hold your interest at all. It's so cliché ridden that you begin to wonder if it's actually a spoof – a piss-take of every hooligan / gangster / chav crime ever made. But that level of subtle satire is beyond anyone here, I suspect. And that's the real tragedy – that everyone involved is taking their mission to destroy the legacy of a great show really seriously. Of course, the show is too good to be permanently damaged by a soon-to-be-forgotten slice of oaf cinema, but just knowing that this will crop up in any reference to The Sweeney from now on is genuinely depressing. On the other hand, if you want to see a shining example of everything wrong with British cinema – the cynical pandering to idiots, the plastic machismo, the sheer lack of ability and ambition (God knows, this has as much chance of travelling internationally as Cannon and Ball's The Boys in Blue... which is certainly the better film). Seriously, the only possible reason to watch this is to marvel at how low filmmaking has sunk in this country, and shake your head in amazement that no one pulled the plug on this complete and utter disaster.

It's dismal. Absolutely dismal. A shoddily made, badly acted, dreadfully scored, pathetically macho and breathtakingly tedious one-dimensional insult to a great TV series. In other words, exactly what you'd expect from a Nick Love film. That it sets itself up for a sequel is genuinely terrifying – start praying to whichever god you think is most amenable now to stop that ever happening.
There are two great Sweeney films out there, as well as the TV series. Stick with those and avoid this shameful travesty at all costs.

DAVID FLINT

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BUY A GOOD SWEENEY FILM INSTEAD (UK)