The Guard (2011)

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh | 96 minutes | thriller, comedy | Actors: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot, Rory Keenan, Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan, Dominique McElligott, Sarah Greene, Katarina Cas, Pat Shortt, Darren Healy, Laurence Kinlan, Gary Lydon, Ronan Collins, Dermot Healy, Dominick Hewitt, Sharon Kearney, Michael Og Lane, Conor Moloney, Giedrius Nagys, Mark O’Halloran, Wale Ojo, Eamonn Olwill, David Pearse, Gary Robinson, Owen Sharpe

Brendan Gleeson is a late bloomer. It wasn’t until he was 34 that the sympathetic Irishman played his first film role. Before that, he earned a living as a primary school teacher. For years, Gleeson was sentenced to supporting roles. During that time he built up an impressive body of work with films such as ‘Braveheart’ (1995), ‘Michael Collins’ (1996), ‘Gangs of New York’ (2002) and ‘Cold Mountain’ (2004) to his credit. Many know him as Alastair ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody from the ‘Harry Potter’ series. It was Martin McDonagh who saw that Gleeson could play a supporting role. He cast him in one of the lead roles for the film ‘In Bruges’ (2008), a wonderfully perverse crime comedy that captivated critics and audiences alike and won several prestigious awards and nominations. Martin’s brother John Michael McDonagh, a screenwriter with directorial ambitions, subsequently recruited Gleeson for his directorial debut ‘The Guard’ (2011), a comedy you rarely see.

Gleeson plays Gerry Boyle, a police officer tasked with keeping order in a village in the west of Ireland. Gerry has his own rules. For example, he casually tries out the ecstasy that he finds after a serious car accident in which a group of young people dies. During work hours he dives into the pub or invites call girls into a hotel room. Anyone who has comments can expect a razor-sharp response. Nothing and no one is sacred, because Gerry is far from being politically correct. US FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), who came to Ireland to track down drug traffickers, experiences first-hand how rude Gerry can be (“I thought only niggers and Mexicans dealt drugs”) . Sometimes he’d like to stick it behind the wallpaper, but Wendell needs that silly Irish village cop to solve the drug case. He has no idea how to deal with those headstrong Irishmen. How he should approach these people who refuse to speak English. The two opposites are forced to work together and a certain mutual understanding is actually created.

Although the central plot line revolves around the dismantling of a drug cartel, ‘The Guard’ is more of a comedy than a crime film. It’s all about the eccentric ‘garda’ Gerry Boyle, played in an inimitable way by Brendan Gleeson. It seems this man invented the term ‘politically incorrect’. He blows one blunt one-liner after another into the air. It’s just a top-notch jerk. Nevertheless, Gleeson gives him a certain charm. We see that he can also be caring, for example when he visits his critically ill mother (Fionnula Flanagan). This is a man hardened by life who puts out his spines in advance to disguise his own vulnerability. But he will never let the outside world notice that. Directly opposite Gerry is Wendell, the good Hendrik who is neatly married and has studied at a prestigious university, a man who does everything according to the rules. Cheadle plays his part a bit perfunctory, but the chemistry with Gleeson is good. Nice supporting roles are from Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong as quasi-philosophical drug czars and Flanagan shines as Gerry’s foul-mouthed mother (who clearly doesn’t like a stranger).

‘The Guard’ relies mainly on its dialogues and acting. The story is quite thin and in terms of photography McDonagh offers little special. However, the sharp one-liners provide enough entertainment and the great Brendan Gleeson pulls the whole way above average. The assembly is tight and economical, because it doesn’t have to take much longer than an hour and a half. For fans of pitch-black, contrarian comedies, ‘The Guard’ is certainly not to be missed.