Review by Nick Stark
THIS WEEK sees the release of one of the funniest films you’ll see all year. The Guard stars an utterly captivating Brendan Gleeson as an ethically-challenged and complacent police officer in rural Ireland, whose comfort zone is upended by the arrival of a trio of drug dealers and the earnest American FBI man trying to nab them.
Part fish-out-of-water story, part Western, part black comedy and part buddy movie – with its framing device of two cops from different worlds being forced to work together, – The Guard is the perfect vehicle for Gleeson’s talents, and marks a strong debut from director John Michael McDonagh, older brother of playwright-filmmaker Martin McDonagh, whose work on ‘In Bruges’ displays the same rich character development and irreverent humor, leavened the occasional outburst of brutal violence. The film has so many laughs – even for an American audience unused to Irish humor – that it’s probably the most consistently hilarious movie I’ve seen since The Hangover.
When we first meet Sgt. Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) in the film’s unsettling opening moments, we see a cop who doesn’t want to work too hard, but will still do what he can to protect the innocent. He may be a rule-bending rascal not averse to pilfering drugs from dead joyriders or consorting with hookers on his day off, but he’s also a loving son whose free time is spent almost entirely with his ailing mother (a glowing Fionnula Flanagan, as unapologetically profane as her progeny).
The first ominous signs that Boyle’s cozy country routine is about to be shattered come with a gruesome murder and the disappearance of his earnest new partner, Garda Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan). To make matters worse, he is forced to work with FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), whose by-the-book methods and modern procedures are anathema to him. During their first meeting, where the hotshot Everett briefs what he clearly believes are dimwitted local flat-foots, he is repeatedly interrupted by Boyle, who delivers one of the film’s best lines by telling him: “I’m Irish, Sir, racism is part of my culture.”
The story is essentially thin and very familar, but as in so many films from both sides of the Irish Sea, the narrative is fleshed out by such rich characters and uniformly excellent acting that we’re happy to go along for the ride. Also in common with “In Bruges”, the villains in The Guard are a cerebral, contemplative lot. Indeed, as the trio of traffickers (Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot and Mark Strong) with whom Gleeson’s Sgt. Gerry Boyle must contend are introduced, they are driving through rural Connemara discussing the relative merits of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Dylan Thomas. The fact that the bad guys are so funny does detract from their menace somewhat, but this film is so essentially likeable that the audience lets it slide. I certainly did.
Sgt. Boyle may call himself a ‘lowly country nobody’ but he proves more than a match for the villains arrayed against him, and in the process he wins the relucant admiration of Everett. Despite this, he does his best to avoid getting involved in the case, even as he begins to suspect that McBride has been killed. What finally brings him to a Boyle, so to speak, is the dismissive way his superior in the Garda attempts to both blackmail and bribe him into looking the other way while the drugs are landed. Things quickly escalate to a matter of life or death for this not-very-Quiet Man, and in the end of course, our reluctant hero proves implacable, rising to the occasion in a comic but effective showdown on the docks.
It’s all but impossible to imagine anyone but Gleeson in the title role. With his saggy body and lived-in features, his world-weary mien and his effortless gift for blunt Anglo-Saxon profanity, he looks born to play this part. And he does. To perfection. As the actor himself said recently, “Anybody who didn’t take that part should lock himself into a small room and shoot himself.”
The Guard, released by Sony Pictures Classics. 96 mins. Rated R.
