“A fish outta water story, bitta humour, throw in a couple of young ones getting their kit off.” John Michael McDonagh’s nothing if not self-aware. An accurate description of this razor-sharp black comedy, The Guard sees unorthodox rural garda Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) teamed with a straight-laced FBI agent (Don Cheadle) when international drug smugglers pass through a sleepy Connemara community.
Echoing the brilliantly sharp, darkly funny and completely irreverent tone of brother Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, John Michael McDonagh’s script allows Gleeson to play both with his dominating physicality and deadpan mischievousness. As he tells new gardai to look for money in houses of murder victims and casually says “I thought black people couldn’t ski. Or is that swimming?”, he’s utterly hilarious. The rhythm of McDonagh’s dialogue is perfection, and Cheadle’s calm presence and bemused reactions provide a wonderfully solid counterpoint to Gleeson’s antics.
When Gleeson isn’t shooting out the least politically correct one-liners imaginable, McDonagh injects the film’s quieter moments with acute observations about what the director claims is Ireland’s suspicion of outsiders (really?) and our television-inspired preconceptions of American law enforcement. As Cheadle travels around the community he’s repeatedly asked if he’s a CSI-style criminal profiler - that is, when people don’t just stare agape at the only black man in the village. There are also beautifully quirky moments of intellectualism provided by the typically Dublin trio of sardonic but philosophical drug smugglers, played to perfection by Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong and the always wonderfully odd David Wilmot.
Unfortunately, The Guard’s visuals don’t do justice to the brilliant script. The combination of harsh lighting, awkwardly edited shots, cheap production values and rural setting combine so that it looks like an unimpressive Irish television drama. Hopefully audiences won’t be as judgemental and appearance-focused as Boyle purports to be and won’t be deterred by the trailer’s appearance, for this uproarious gem deserves to be seen.