Brendan Gleeson
“THE GUARD” My rating: B+ (Opens wide on Sept. 2)
96 minutes | Audience rating: R
Brendan Gleeson has always been a great actor, but he’s spent most of his life in supporting roles.
“The Guard” won’t change that, but it should.
This absolutely wonderful film from first-time feature director John Michael McDonagh (who also penned the script) finds Gleeson dominating every second he’s on screen in a role tailor-made for his imposing physical presence and bullish personality.
The movie is a crime saga, a buddy flick, a black comedy…but most of all it’s a terrific character study of a guy we’re not sure we like, but who grabs our attention and won’t let go.
Gleeson here plays Sgt. Gerry Boyle, a member of the Guardia (Ireland’s national police force) stationed on the west coast near Galway.
Boyle is fat, cynical and sarcastic…at first glance he might be the Hibernian equivalent of a redneck Southern sheriff.
Don Cheadle, Brendan Gleeson
He runs a one-man shop in a rural low-crime area and he likes it that way. Maybe he’s just a lazy slob.
Anyway, he’s none too thrilled to be working the region’s first murder case in a decade.
And that investigation dovetails with a joint operation between the Guardia and the Yanks to seize a boat full of illegal drugs from South America; it’s expected to land somewhere along the coast in the next week.
The American’s have sent over FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to mount an intercept operation; he and Boyle immediately are at odds.
Everett is a stickler for protocol who’s concerned both by Boyle’s lackadaisical approach (the Irishman refuses to work on his day off because he’s got a couple of call girls from the city coming for a visit) and the blatantly racist questions Boyle asks under the guise of innocently trying to understand the lives of black people in the U.S.
Their salt-and-pepper comedy pairing is nicely balanced by the scenes with the bad guys, three drug traffickers who are as sophisticated as they are lethal.
Sheehy (Liam Cunningham), Cornell (Mark Strong) and O’Leary (David Wilmot) spend their time driving around the region looking for likely landing spots, all the while delivering some of the most scintillating dialogue we’ve heard all year. For crooks they’re a very literary, erudite bunch. When they’re not killing somebody, it’s a pleasure to hear them palaver.
Brendan Gleeson and friends
“The Guard” is a nifty exercise in narrative sleight of hand. Boyle is such an indifferent lawman we wonder if he’s not in cahoots with the bad guys. Actually, he may be the only honest flatfoot in sight.
The investigation leads inexorably to a massive shootout in which our mismatched and outmanned heroes must take on the villains, and it’s a testament to just how enjoyable this movie is that we wish it could go on just a little longer.
The acting couldn’t be better. Even Cheadle, who must play straight man to Gleeson’s oxygen-sucking Boyle, find notes of humor and conscience, and the three crooks are so much fun I’d like to see a prequel just about them.
Toss in the always-brilliant Fionnula Flanagan as Boyle’s dying mother (you can see where he got his brusque style) and Rory Keenan as a hapless young cop assigned to shadow Boyle, and you have one fine perf after another.
But at the center there’s Gleeson. He gives the film heart, soul and a gloriously bad attitude.
| Robert W. Butler
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