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Movie Musings: The Guard

Dark, chuckle-inducing, Irish, mismatched buddy-cop movie.

I had high expectations what with all the poster quotes claiming how funny it is.  It's funny, but in that chuckle-silently-to-yourself-every-little-once-in-a-while kind of way.  It's very Irish and with much of it's humour relying on it's protagonist Sgt Gerry Boyle's (Brendan Gleeson; Harry Potter, Green Zone) psuedo-racism, the film serves only to be racist against the Irish.  Sure, one portrayal of an Irish copper doesn't necessarily serve to propagate a stereotype, but you know what I mean.


Gleeson is charming as ever (so lovable!) but his mismatched partner-in-law enforcement FBI agent Wendall Everett (Don Cheadle; Crash, Hotel Rwanda) doesn't really stand up.  He's just not as funny (or watchable).  Drug-smuggling side-plot aside, the focus is on their relationship dynamics (as you would expect from a buddy movie).  However, you never really believe in it given that their shared scenes are never really meaty, meaningful or funny enough.

It's dark, it's somewhat funny but it loses direction somewhere in the middle and it's got a very very strange pace and tone.

Watch if you liked: The Usual Suspects, In Bruges, Perrier's Bounty

*

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham
Synopsis: An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is teamed up with an uptight FBI agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.  From IMDB.com



*****

1 comment:

  1. I just watched "the usual suspects" and I loved it - "in bruges" is on my rental list!

    x. jill
    those ghosts

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