Tough Love

This was a generally well-reviewed two-part Sunday evening drama.

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DCI Lenny Milton is an unambitious officer whose best friend, DCI Michael Love, is now head of the local force. But when Milton is forced undercover to investigate allegations of corruption against his friend, he faces uncovering a truth he desperately doesn't want to learn. When Milton becomes the prime suspect in a murder investigation, he must finally discover whether best friend DCI Love is guilty of corruption.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Love (Adrian Dunbar) is a charismatic, media-savvy officer whose zero tolerance policing strategy has cut crime in the northern town where he is a local hero. But at his moment of greatest public triumph, a corruption-busting squad is looking into his background.... Anyone familiar with the highly publicised real-life suspension and investigation into Cleveland Police's zero tolerance pioneer, Detective Superintendent Ray Mallon will be struck by the parallels with this superior and superbly acted thriller. But Tough Love is fiction, so it's Love's closest friend, Detective Constable Lenny Milton (the wonderful Ray Winstone), who is forced into examining his friendship after inquiry leaders urge him to investigate the man he says is "the straightest bloke I've ever met".

(from Radio Times 'Choices' 1 October 2000)