Ah, the smell of burning rubber on a spring afternoon. That'll be the new trailer for crime caper The Sweeney, screaming onto a webpage near you (ie this one) with shouty coppers Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and George Carter (Ben Drew) to the fore.
The big-screen adaptation of the ITV cop show has shifted from the grimy '70s to a more contemporary context, but the coppers' hardball methods look pretty similar.
Nick Love is the man behind it and The Firm director looks like he's playing it pretty straight on this evidence. The old Thaw / Waterman double act still looks to have the market cornered for twinkly charm and battered Ford Cortinas, but Drew and Winstone pack plenty of punch too. Expect John 'Trainspotting' Hodges's script to give them regular opportunities to show it.
The hardbitten London 'tec is ripe for a send up - hunt down The Comic Strip Presents' Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown for a classic lampoon of the genre - but there's no sign of a Starsky & Hutch twinkle here. This is motors, shooters, gangsters, fast cars and Raymondo laying down the wrath of the Lord on some very bad people.
The studio's confident that this will make its mark with audiences. How confident? The sequel's already underway. That confident.
Look out for **The Sweeney **in a cinema near you from September 12.