The Guard: Loving the Dangerous Irish Guy

I want to be a McDonagh. I may not be Irish, but I write movies, love Brendan Gleeson, and have a drinking problem. Three out of four should count for something…

Martin McDonagh entered filmmaking with his excellent 2006 short “Six Shooter” (starring Gleeson), about a dysfunctional and dangerous Irish guy. Then he made 2008’s feature debut “In Bruges” (starring Gleeson) about a dysfunctional and dangerous Irish guy. Now he’s produced his brother's writing/directorial debut "The Guard" (starring Gleeson) about a dysfunctional and dangerous Irish guy. And I love it so much I could die. Someone, please let this Irish family just keep making films so that Brendan Gleeson can win the Oscars he deserves.

The Guard opens with a sequence in which drunk gangsters lose control of their car and plow into a wall, dying instantly. Local policeman Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) could’ve saved them, but chose to sit and watch. He approaches the bodies, disposes of their drugs, so their mothers never have to know, keeping only a single hit of acid to take for himself, before enjoying the sunrise. It’s an astoundingly effective pre-credit sequence, setting up exactly what kind of odd-ball misanthrope Boyle is, and preparing you for an entire film in which you’ll never know if he’s smarter than everyone around him, dumber than rocks, or just so intoxicated that I.Q. never comes into play.

As one of the only Gardai in the small community of Connemara, Gaeltacht, Boyle meets his new partner the next morning over a murder scene. A crime which initially appears to have supernatural overtones eventually reveals a connection to a trio of crime syndicate heads who may be orchestrating the single largest importation of cocaine in the history of Ireland. When Boyle’s new partner is murdered, the FBI sends in a liaison to apprehend these crime lords: Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle). The straight-laced American with a Yale background becomes sorely mismatched as a partner to Gleeson’s slobbish, offensive, and potentially dim Boyle.

Their initial confrontation in a room of Irish Guards and top brass yields my favorite line from a movie this year. When Boyle attacks Everett’s presumed inflated street value of the cocaine: "Street value! I do always wonder what street it is you're buying your cocaine on because it's not the same street as I'm buying my cocaine on." Dead silence from the room full of cops.

The McDonagh’s undying love for Ireland comes through in every detail of the off-the-map community. Smaller characters breathe life into every other scene, and a town full of Gaelic speakers who hate authority are the perfect foil to Everett’s American bravado. It also becomes a wonderful backdrop for the three villains (including Mark Strong of Green Lantern… fame?), who enjoy tourism and fine dining when not waxing philosophical, doing evil, or both. But the spotlight is only truly borrowed from Gleeson in the scenes where he must deal with end-of-life plans for his failing mother, played expertly by Fionnula Flanagan. Despite having only a limited amount of screen time, she steals every second of it by masterminding one of the most touchingly realistic and darkly humorous mother-son relationships ever recorded on film. It takes a spectacular deftness to create a scene of real emotional depth watching a fading mother ask her son for amyl nitrite.

The Guard doesn’t re-invent the genre. We’ve seen this style of buddy cop film thousands of times, and very specifically in Hot Fuzz; and the drunk Irish cop who enjoys whores and never wearing pants is actually precariously close to last year’s iPhone video game Hector: Badge of Carnage.

Heck, John Michael McDonagh barely re-invents the internal family storytelling formula. But it’s just so excellent at what it is: brilliantly plotted, originally voiced, and action-packed with award season level performances. Combined with clever editing, beautiful shot design, and a soundtrack from Calexico, it’s a film to seek out immediately.