Anyone know why the British censor increased the certificate from AA (for over-14's) to 18? I saw it on ITV4 the other night and although I may have been watching an edited version, it did not look much more than a 12A to me. Admittedly I've never seen the video or DVD version - only on TV - so does anyone know why it was an 18?
shareThe ending is very violent due to the shotgun sequence,therefore the cert was upped to an 18.
shareYour reply is much appreciated but the shotgun sequence has always been in the film, even when it was 'AA'.
What we really need to know is if any editing was done originally in order to get a 'AA', and then the deleted footage perhaps restored. I think there may have been some complaints that following the popularity of the TV series, many teenagers were disappointed at being refused entry to cinemas for the first Sweeney film (which had an 'X' certificate) and so the producers did whatever was required for the second film to avoid the same mistake.
As for the shotgun sequence, I have to say that the woman screaming is a very good bit of acting - she looks genuinely terrified. It is possible that the late James Ferman (who may have been the acting secretary of the BBFC at the time the certifciate was raised to '18') took exception to this, given his well-known dislike of violence against women.
Anyway, if anyoone out there knows if anything was edited from this part of the film, please let us know.
Hi ChrisN12,
Generally under the BBFC a theatrical release and video/DVD are treated as separate entities, and there have been several instances where a release on physically owned media gets a higher rating than the film version, and in some cases further cuts are demanded. The general rule-of-thumb is to consider the likelihood of the material getting into the hands of minors, which does seem a little twee when it's perfectly possible, with typical ingenuity, for an underage kid to get into cinemas. A particularly daft rule the BBCF had for quite a few years was the refusal to give The Exorcist a certificate for general video/DVD release.
I saw this film on its release, when I was 13, and felt pretty grown up watching my first film with a AA certificate and being underage. It definitely didn't carry the X certificate. Strange when one considers how so much more restrictive the censorship rules were then, when the script contains the F-word - in fact, it was the first film I'd ever seen with it in. I remember the juvenile excitement I had that a film could contain the kind of language we used with our mates. Z-cars, although cutting edge when it first appeared on television, never did seem the same again ! I don't recall the word used quite so often in the cinema release as in the video release, so it could be that the distributors agreed to some dubbing to lower the certificate - the Sweeney series was very popular in the Seventies, and the distributors probably didn't want to lose out on teenagers with pocket money to spend. The final scene where the gang leader shoots the girl then puts the barrels in his mouth with the knickers stuffed inside was there, with Reagan's face spattered with blood as he dives in. He surveys the scene in shock, and the split-second images of both the girl with a hole in her chest and the bloke with half his head blown off were there. I don't recall seeing anything that I don't remember from the cinema, so I don't think these images were added causing the certificate to alter. Of course, the split-second image can be slowed down or even freeze-framed on owned physical media, even though you're still only viewing a special effect, and maybe it's this that caused the censor to re-appraise the original ruling.
"Do you want to go to the toilet, Albert?"
Many thanks for your very interesting reply, Gary. I was very surprised to read about there being a split-second image of the two people lying dead at the end. I certainly don't recall seeing this on either of my two TV viewings (although admittedly the first was a very long time ago, sometime around 1983) so perhaps this was edited out for TV screenings. Perhaps I will have to buy the DVD to see it.
shareTV screenings are a force unto themselves. I've seen some films, films I know very well, on the BBC shown quite late at night, despite being prefaced with an audience warning about adult content, and yet still see scenes with several seconds chopped out. The ghost of Mary Whitehouse still haunts Auntie Beeb it seems. The final scene, as well as several others from Sweeney 2, is on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqy5UckDPiU&NR=1.
If you're a Sweeney fan, there's a box set available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Definitive-Sweeney-Complete-1-4-Discs/dp/B000V 6AEPO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1269518107&sr=1-2) which contains the complete series 1 to 4, both cinema films, and Regan, the pilot shown before the series was commissioned as The Sweeney. And all for about 40 quid. Enjoy.
"Do you want to go to the toilet, Albert?"
Sweeney 2 was butchered when it was shown on tv. Rendering the end scene completely ridiculous. All we see are Regan burst through the door and get a blast of blood in his face. when i first saw it i thought Regan had shot him! There was no shot of the perps shotgun at all. It was only years later when i saw the uncut video that i dicovered what actually happened!
"I felt my pecker flutter once, like a pigeon havin' a heart attack"
This is not the first time the certificate on a video has been increased. Sweeney 2 was a 'AA' in the cinema but the original EMI/Thorn EMI release was uncertified. Once submitted, it's remained as an '18'.
A similar thing happened a few years ago with 'Who Dares Wins'. This was certified '15' for the cinema and the original Rank Video (pre-cert though) kept the '15' for it's first release. The sell-thru re-release in 1987 or 1988 however saw an increase to '18' which it has kept since then.
Lethal Weapon 2, Conan The Destroyer, Batman and License To Kill all had higher video certificates compared to the cinema release. Simply put, this was because the BBFC understood that children were more likely to see these films at home when their parents rented them than would be true in the cinema. Therefore, they felt an increase over issues of violence would be an approriate warning to parents.
'Culture, sophistication, a little bit more than an 'ot dog' You said it Bob!
Didn't the DVD/Blu-ray dual edition release of Who Dares Wins from a few months ago get a '15' certificate?
And regarding Licence to Kill, didn't that have a '15' certificate for both the cinema and video release?
Oooops, my mistake on Licence to Kill. I could have sworn that was rated '12' when it came out at the cinema, but according to the BBFC website it was a '15'. My mistake.
Also looks like Who Dares Wins has finally been re-rated too. The last DVD release in 2002 remained '18' but it looks like it's gone back to it's original certificate for the latest release (I didn't realise it had been re-released).
'Culture, sophistication, a little bit more than an 'ot dog' You said it Bob!
The BBFC website says that "this work was passed with no cuts made", but until about 10 years ago, censorship standards were more strict for home video than for theatrical releases, ostensibly due to the ability to pause and rewind violent scenes etc. Nowadays, the BBFC is somewhat less bizarre than it was in the '80s and early '90s, and films tend to receive the same rating in both formats.
shareThere is definitely a MASSIVELY cut version of Sweeney 2 that occasionally shows up in the afternoons on one or other of the UK ITV channels...
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