The Guard (2011)
Directed by John Michael McDonagh
When a small-town Irish cop with a crass personality is partnered with a straight-laced FBI agent to bust an international drug-trafficking ring, they must settle their differences in order to take down a dangerous gang.
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Much like McDonagh's brother Michael's "In Bruges" (which also starred Gleeson), "The Guard" gleefully mixes strong violence with deliciously funny dialogue, with the characters taking time out of the crime plot to comment on the oddities of words like "liquidate" or "anomaly."
The film is awfully funny, but like his brother's "In Bruges," it also has notes of melancholy and brutal, murderous realities.
Written and directed as a first feature by John Michael McDonagh (older brother of “In Bruges” playwright/filmmaker Martin McDonagh), it’s more comedy than thriller, since the bad guys (Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, David Wilmot) are revealed early on and, despite an inexplicable penchant for quoting Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, their demise seems inevitable.
In his efforts to keep up with his prolific sibling, John McDonagh was savvy enough to enlist well-traveled actor Gleeson (Gangs of New York, two or three Harry Potters, and John Boorman's wonderful The General), whose role as Ken in Martin McDonagh's In Bruges is a latter-day pinnacle of harp movie magic.
Rookie writer/director McDonagh has a short resume — he’s best known as the brother of Martin McDonagh, the director of In Bruges.
It’s a fabulous debut for McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin McDonagh, who wrote and directed the not-dissimilar “In Bruges”).
If you can imagine the whimsicality of "Local Hero" crossed with the dark, British Isle ruralness of the "Red Riding" trilogy if its criminal elements had immigrated from "Fargo," you'll have an idea of McDonagh's deft tonal touch.
I could just as easily suggest that "The Guard" is "Hot Fuzz" by way of "Local Hero."
But odd details, like the kid riding a bike with his dog on a leash, and the quaint landscape are also reminiscent of the whimsical Scottish comedy "Local Hero."
Richard Linklater's "Everybody Wants Some!!" is being positioned as the "spiritual sequel" to "Dazed and Confused," the director's exuberant 1993 ode to high school life in the 1970s.
Then the Connemara coppers are hit with the FBI's Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle, "Talk to Me," "Iron Man 2"), a serious sort on the trail of a half billion dollars of cocaine.