The Guard (2011)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This film is, at least, controversial and difficult to judge. The plot is based on a crime and the difficult collaboration between an FBI agent and a very unorthodox Irish police officer, played by Brendan Gleeson. The work of this actor is excellent and gives strength to the film. No one can doubt it. He can fit his character in that sensitive gap between the comic and the grotesque, giving him a lightness worthy of a comedy full of black humor. He is a cop who does everything a cop should not do, and yet we feel empathy for him. Don Cheadle plays the conventional American cop but has funny dialogues, such as his Irish colleague, who seems to despise his methods and way of working, as well as not being able to say a sentence without causing embarrassment to his own force. In fact, dialogues are something to emphasize here. The use of slang is plentiful, so it's best to prevent younger ones from watching, but it was also the first time I ever heard Gaelic in a movie.

Many reviewers have praised this movie but compared it unfavourably to In Bruges. In my opinion, this is the funnier of the two and is the kind of film you can watch again and again to pick up on lines you may have missed first time round. It's so well crafted every word moves the story further, there is no padding and wicked humour is found in the grimmest of places.Maybe that's is why I love it more each time I watch it. There is such a lot to admire and every detail seems carefully thought out. The whole cast are good but Gleeson is absolutely superb.I like British/Irish films and put this on par with Snatch or Death at a Funeral (British version!) in its style of mordant humour.

To paraphrase The Guard's FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), this movie is either really motherf****n' smart, or really motherf****n' dumb. Having laughed my way throughout the majority of it, my feet are firmly in the former camp, with Brendan Gleeson's towering performance and writer/director John Michael McDonagh's extremely witty script make this one of the most under-appreciated movies of 2011. It is, on the surface, a simple fish out of water story crossed with a mismatched buddy comedy. But with a self awareness that brings to mind Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), The Guard often feels like it's more intelligent than it's letting on, similar in many ways to it's morally shady protagonist.Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) is not your everyday Garda (Gaelic for 'policeman') . As he expressionlessly watches a car load of weed- toking yoofs crash and die, he helps himself to the insides of their pockets and finds some acid, which he promptly swallows without thinking twice. He cares about his terminally ill mother, so we know he's at least not all bad. His laid-back attitude to law enforcement is threatened by the arrival of the eager Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) from Dublin, as well as a murder that may point to the work of an occult serial killer. There's also more drugs on the streets than ever before, but Gerry enjoys those almost as much as he enjoys his hookers.If the witty yet crass dialogue spouting from this grumpy collections of Irishmen sounds somewhat familiar, then this is probably because John Michael's brother Martin McDonagh penned and directed In Bruges (2008), which also starred Gleeson. In my opinion, The Guard is better and certainly funnier. Most of the humour stems from Gerry himself and the way he plays with the characters he interacts with as much as the audience themselves. With the news that international drug traffickers are heading to Connemara to make a multi-million (or billion, no-one seems to know) dollar deal, FBI Agent Everett arrives to brief the guard's on the situation. When the dealers appear on the projector as Liam Cunningham and Mark Strong, Gerry's response is "But I thought all drug-dealers were black?".It may seem somewhat bad taste humour, but the way Gleeson delivers his lines, and the reaction by Cheadle (who plays the straight-man extremely well), make for comedy gold. Gerry is everything Everett despises - bigoted, ignorant - but the loathing changes to curiosity as he witnesses Gerry do some good police work and appears to be the only one who cares. Is he putting on an act to catch people off- guard? Is he really an idiot with a natural instinct for detective work? Or is he a bit both? I can forgive it's formulaic shoot-out ending for suspicion that it may be mocking the type of films it's emulating. After all, this is a fish-out-of-water-story where the main character verbally acknowledges that he's in a fish-out-of- water story. I'm sticking with really motherf****n' smart.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

The Guard is a comedy that boasts a high level of cheeky humour and a cast that knows perfectly how to perform to this kind of comedy. With it's distinctly Irish flavour it never seems to fail at any point and even when the jokes aren't crying out loud one's, they are still pretty smartly done. It's quite short for a film with such a plot, but goes along way to getting the most out of it's script, I felt that it was firmly a very good movie, and here is why.The story is just a great one for a comedy, it is very dark comedy and everything can seem very bleak at times to say such funny lines are being produced. What was nice to see in the plot was that it wasn't afraid to maybe get slightly philosophical at times(even if it has a tinge of sarcasm),and really allow the characters to grow and grow so that we get to know them well, but they also deliver a comical performance, this film is very Irish comedy, all around the place.Brendan Gleeson in the main role as Sergeant Gerry Boyle is jolly and really contributes to the end rating of this movie, he brilliantly portrays a funny cop who we are not sure whether he is a good cop or a bent cop. Don Cheadle as the FBI agent goes along well with Gleeson and the casual racism directed towards him from some of the characters is dealt with well by the character, but also in a way that you know it is offensive and the racist person is just being plain dumb.John Michael McDonagh is the brain child behind this project and with a pretty limited budget to get such a cast, he manages to churn out a comedy with well constructed jokes bursting out from it. He directs and writes it and his talent for doing so is seen all the way through, he just knows what to do and the jokes flow through very nicely and also, they are very well times and not overdone. One more things to say is the setting is great, bleak but beautiful I felt it was a great advert fro Ireland, even if in the film, it contains some far from respectable characters. My only real criticism is well, I could say the jokes are never quite massive laughs, this movie will and does make you laugh but it is more of a conveyor belt of great jokes, but they won't make you cry at any point, unless you absolutely love McDonagh's comedy. Not so much criticism but I would have liked to have seen more of the community get involved in the film and really be a bit like the film "Hot Fuzz", but in the way that the town has various humorous characters. Fans of smart comedy and obviously Irish comedy should love this through and through, it just will entice you from start to finish and the running time doesn't drag this down, if anything it doesn't over stay it's welcome. If you like big gags and stunts, basically slapstick type humour, you won't like this as it mostly is funny by word of mouth, not if a character falls of a building and dies, it is much more complex than that.Overall it is Firmly a Very Good movie. You have to like it even if you don't laugh so much, it could lack jokes for some viewers and maybe others will not want the story, they may just want comedy which is fair, but I will say, this movie can be very enjoyable, if you watch it and enjoy the great mix of great comedy, and great story telling.