The Sweeney (2012) poster
2012 · action · crime · heist

The Sweeney

Directed by Nick Love1h 52m2012
ElsewhereIMDb6.121kRT44%Metacritic48
  • sombre
  • kinetic
  • intense
  • cold
Movie DNA

Sombre, breathless, measured action / crime, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Jack Regan, a hardened cop who doesn’t play by the rules, is confronted with a criminal from his past. With sidekick George Carter they are put on the case of a jewellery store heist that ends in a killing. But is that killing really an execution in disguise? With pressure from his boss and the fact that Regan is having an affair with that boss’s wife, it’s not going to be easy for him to stay out of trouble.

Our read · The Sweeney (2012) reads as a sombre, breathless, grounded action · crime · heist entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Where to watch
Not on streaming here right now.Check JustWatch Check Letterboxd
More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of The Sweeney

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want hard-edged London cop action with Ray Winstone swagger and car chases.

ends bittersweetit leaves you shakensteady all the waygrips by minute 12attention 3/5earns its lengthsubtitles: partial
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonightYou dislike macho police violence or need nuanced character drama tonight.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself