Before John Thaw was listening to classical music and solving crimes in Inspector Morse and Dennis Waterman was minding George Cole (as well as writing the theme tune, singing the theme tune), the pair were keeping the streets of London safe in the seminal seventies TV show The Sweeney.

Director Nick Love, who has a penchant for directing tired, violent-for-violence's-sake films (The Firm, The Football Factory), felt the need to take this much loved TV show and do what many characters in his films often do – knock it to the ground and kick the living daylights out of it. What a slag.

Within the Met police there’s a unit that runs by its own set of rules. It’s known as the Sweeney. Heading this tough bunch of nuts is Jack Regan (Ray Winstone). Regan is a no-nonsense copper who does what he needs to to get the job done. This often means bending the law all over the gaff. But as he and his team get results, they are more or less left to their own devices.

When not only a robbery takes place but also the murder of an innocent bystander in a jewellery shop, Regan and his team - including his protégé, George Carter (Ben Drew) - are keen to investigate.

After looking into it, they believe they’ve got their man – but other evidence suggests otherwise. This slip up gets Internal Affairs even more interested in the team, as they already believe there to be more than the odd bad apple in the group.

Even though IA is breathing down their necks, Regan and the rest of the Sweeney are still keen on bringing the right man in, any way they can.

If we stay here long enough, maybe they won't notice we're here and they'll go home. Sweeney my arse.

It takes a certain kind of director to completely bastardise the legacy of this classic show and original characters into something beyond recognition. Love's version of the Sweeney incorporates a flying squad consisting of geezers and wide boys. At one point he even gets the team chanting "Swee-ney" over and over again, as if they were on the football terraces. They also think nothing of putting their feet up on the desks, like a bunch of delinquents.

Epitomising this new-looking squad is Drew. Drew (aka Plan B) looks about as far removed from being a copper as you can possibly get. In fact, he looks more like a music artist that thought they'd give this acting thing a go, and he soon finds himself completely out of his depth. He should definitely go back to plan A as far as his career his concerned. His performance is so appalling that he makes Danny Dyer look like Olivier.

And then there's Ray Winstone. What the hell was he thinking? His career surely can't be at a stage where he has to resort to this kind of guff. A part on something like Game of Thrones would have been a better move than this. Even a part on EastEnders would have been preferable. Instead, he chose to take a role that amounts to nothing more than a Delboy character with all the lovability squeezed out. At one point, Winstone has the audacity to utter the line "I'm jogging on" without a wince of embarrassment. On top of that, he's on show in a love scene in nothing more than a pair of yellow pants. No one should have to pay good money to see something as disturbing as that.

The only credit that Love can take is from making this contemporary version feel even more dated than the original seventies show.

The story is obvious, the script laughable – particularly when you consider that every other vowel was removed from every word in it – and what passes for acting is nothing short of amateurish.

In fact, everything about this film is vile.

Love should feel disgraced with himself for producing such an abhorrence. Someone, at some point, needs to sit him down in front of a dictionary and have him look up the word subtlety – and then no doubt explain to him what it means.

This is not The Sweeney in any recognisable shape or form. It is nothing other than an attempt to make some easy cash off of a much loved franchise, with the least amount of effort. It is lazy, lowest common denominator film-making.

This film is so incredibly offensive that there really ought to be a law against it. And the sooner Love is put behind bars for his crimes against film-making, the better.