Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This is a 'rootin - tootin," shoot-em-up, no holds barred, action filled cops and robbers show, with the occasional touch of male chauvinism and with vintage 1977 class. It's Dempsdy and Makepeace meets John Thaw's The Sweeny done with panache and verve. It's notable for the presence of a very young Martin Shaw who, in his 50's, went on to play the erudite, gentleman detective Inspector George Gently. The show's appeal and popularity are attested to by the fact that it ran five seasons.CI5 (Criminal Investigations 5) is a specially formed police group tasked to tackle those criminal enterprises that prove beyond the reach of New Scotland Yard and the Special Operations Branch. Its commander George Cowley (played by Gordon Jackson) and its two chief operatives Doyle (played by Martin Shaw) and Bodie (played by Lewis Collins) comprise the staple team that undertakes a range of special police assignments under a broad mandate and with sometimes less than scrupulous observance of the niceties of British Due Process but always focused on defeating the criminals others can't touch and achieving justice. Cowley barks orders and runs interference with the lordly, upper political classes embarrassed by the teams non-gentile methods. Doyle and Brodie provide the muscle and street smarts brought to bear on the situation at hand.This format effectively sustained the series during its five season run from 1977 to 1982. It's a great piece of police action drama that aficionados of the genre should not miss.

Here we have the fictional "CI5" organisation run by tough no nonsense Cowely played by veteran actor Gordon Jackson.The show focuses on CI5'S two "best" agents,bubble perm played by Martin Shaw and shorty played by Lewis Collins. I think people look back at this with rose tinted spectacles,sure its got some great action scenes and Gordon Jackson was the best thing in it but what else was there?This show copied some of the elements used in "The Sweeney" which started first, and then flogged them to death. The result is two herberts driving round in cars like lunatics even when their not chasing someone,bossing uniformed police about and using firearms with as much sense as a 5 year old. Some of the stories were thread bare and unlike gritty "The Sweeney" more often than not there was a happy ending as bubble perm and shorty turn up, roll over the bonnet of their Capri v6, take command of the whole situation and shoot someone.Good old Martin Shaw...here you have a man so selfish with an ego as big as a solar system. As soon as the show finished he decided he no longer liked it and banned any repeats- what a lovely man. It had to be pointed out to him that Gordon Jacksons widow could well do with the money the repeats would bring! He then must of agreed as it s been repeated for years now-that was big of him!!Good fun but nothing more and it can be watched with your brain out of gear.

Alongside 'The Sweeney', 'The Professionals' is probably the best-remembered British action series of the 1970's. It was created by Brian Clemens, and followed hot on the heels of 'The New Avengers'. Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins had appeared together in an episode ( 'Obsession' ).I was not immediately won over by 'The Professionals'. I had the impression that Clemens had taken some left-over 'New Avengers' scripts, scrubbed out the names 'Steed', 'Gambit' and 'Purdey', and substituted 'Bodie', 'Doyle', and 'Cowley'. Certainly the Russian agents in 'The Female Factor' looked and sounded like they had come straight from that show. Even some of Laurie Johnson's incidental music sounded indistinguishable. I was not alone in my cynicism. A letter writer to 'The People' newspaper soon after its debut claimed that 'Gordon Jackson was badly miscast' and that the show was basically 'the poor man's Starsky & Hutch'.The hit U.S. show starring David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser was declining in popularity in the U.K. as 'The Professionals' debuted. I recall my school friends suddenly raving about this new show and going silent on the subject of Huggy Bear's pals.Despite initial misgivings, I stuck with 'The Professionals' and am glad that I did because it improved as it went along. The ratings went up in spite of tough competition from B.B.C.-1's equally violent 'Gangsters'. Later on it would be pitted against the popular private eye drama 'Shoestring'.The premise was this; George Cowley ( Gordon Jackson ) is the head of C15, an organisation set up to combat terrorism. His top agents are Bodie ( Lewis Collins ) and Doyle ( Martin Shaw ). That was really all there was to it.The show boasted lots of exciting action ( violent even by today's standards ), guest-stars such as a pre-'Not The Nine O'Clock News' Pamela Stephenson, one of the best theme tunes ever, a pair of personable leads, and some pretty good scripts. Particularly memorable were 'In The Public Interest' in which C15 investigates an ( unnamed ) city where a zero tolerance policy to crime has unfortunately given rise to massive police corruption; and 'The Rack' where C15's very existence is questioned, and Cowley has to make an impassioned plea to a court to preserve the anonymity of an informer. 'Heroes' had witnesses to a robbery coming under threat from the underworld when a newspaper foolishly printed their names. One episode - 'Klansman' - dealt with racism and was deemed too controversial to broadcast.Shaw and Collins made a good team, and Jackson gave solid support in what was basically a thankless role. The show predictably drew complaints on account of its violence, but fans seemed not to mind. Yes, it took a simplistic approach to serious issues such as terrorism, and there was virtually no character development, but it managed to be good entertainment. It ran for five years in all, totalling 57 episodes.'The Two Ronnies' did a funny parody called 'Tinker, Taylor, Smiley, Doyle' in which Ronnie Corbett's 'Doyle' got a new partner in the shape of Ronnie Barker's mild-mannered 'George Smiley'. And, of course, 'The Comic Strip Presents' gave us 'The Bullshitters'!Though repeats were blocked for many years by Martin Shaw, 'The Professionals' is now to be found on 'I.T.V.-4' ( with heavily edited editions going out in afternoon slots ) and before that, 'Granada Plus'. Despite changing public tastes, its popularity has endured.With the arrival of 'Life On Mars' on B.B.C.-1 in 2006, the genre of hard-bitten '70's crime telly was effectively exhumed. Viewers could once again see men being men, and women either being shot, beaten up or taken to bed. 'The Professionals' though was the real McCoy.

This programme is being repeated on New Zealand television right now. I remember watching it in the 1970s, when I was a kid. I loved it then and it's still good now.Don't get me wrong, this isn't classic British television like "Upstairs Downstairs" or "Forsythe Saga". It's very straightforward. Good guys versus bad guys action. Strong jaw-lines and grim expressions (with a few throw-away lines thrown in). Scripts are direct with few twists, and not much thinking needed from the audience. But so well done! I'd sit down and watch it any day.