Dir: John Michael McDonagh / Writer: John Michael McDonagh / Cinematography: Larry Smith
Brendan Gleeson is amused / gleeful? (image: Oneras FlickrCC)
With guards like this who needs…
Do not be fooled by Brendan Gleeson’s cherubic face and his role as a village cop/Garda on the West coast of Ireland, for this take on the age-old mismatched cops / buddy comedy is like Local Hero pumped through a Tarantino filter. From start to finish this is as crude, lewd, violent and, of course, as witty as anything QT might put out, and then some. Which starts to make sense when you work out that rookie director, John McDonagh’s brother is Martin McDonagh – of foul-mouthed but equally funny In Bruges fame.
Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) is a straight-laced FBI agent who gets packed off to Ireland when his morals get in the way of his colleagues under-the-table activities. There to assist on a major drug bust he finds that even on the other side of the Atlantic he’s seen as too much of a killjoy to be let in on the fun.
Garda Sergeant Gerry O’Boyle whose dubious pastimes include (very) young-looking prostitutes, midgets and confiscated drugs by the bucket-load, becomes an unlikely ally when Wendell decides to follow a hunch and do a spot of investigation in the wilds of Galway, but their tentative steps towards an understanding are both hilarious and heart-warming.
The easily offended should stick well clear as racist, sexist, anti-religion and every type of un-PC comment come flying past with equal abandon. But if you’re looking for a fresh, tightly-written thriller that manages to skip past every buddy movie cliché going, you’re in for a treat. Cheadle and Gleeson have a natural rapport which makes their scenes a delight and Mark Strong adds to his growing list of scene-stealing performances as the bored, but lethal, mobster Clive Cornell.
And just how often do you get to say that a film really wasn’t long enough?
Rating: 4.5/5
IMDb entry for The Guard
Tags: Brendan Gleeson, David Wilmot, Don Cheadle, Fionnula Flanagan, John Michael McDonagh, Katarina Cas, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong
