The Guard

Brendan Gleeson has always been a versatile and under-appreciated actor, and thankfully The Guard gives him a chance to shine.

It’s a frequently hilarious Irish comedy-thriller marks the feature filmmaking debut of John Michael McDonagh, brother of Martin McDonagh, who gave Gleeson another of his most memorable roles with In Bruges (2008). Gleeson could do worse than follow these siblings around for the rest of his career.

He plays the title character in The Guard, as irascible Sgt. Gerry Boyle, a policeman from small-town Ireland who pretty much despises everything about his job and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. He can’t stand the “big-city boys” from Dublin who take over a major case on his turf. And he’s a racist, drug-using womanizer who makes his appalling convictions known to his supervisors and everyone else within earshot. He also is dealing with a terminally ill mother (Fionnula Flanagan).

Yet behind the ethical deficiencies and off-putting exterior, Boyle has a knack for always solving the cases put before him. Whether it’s due to cunning and smart detective work, or because of consistently dumb luck, isn’t really clear. But Boyle is good at what he does, even if he’s hated for the crass and confrontational way he does it.

Reluctantly, he’s teamed with an uptight FBI agent (Don Cheadle) sent to investigate the disappearance of a fellow cop and a related drug-trafficking ring in Boyle’s county. The mismatched pair experiences plenty of frustration, but the American quickly learns he will have to tolerate Boyle to piece the clues together.

Many of the those thriller elements of the plot are disposable (not to mention far-fetched, in the case of Cheadle’s character), but The Guard shines as a character study, giving Gleeson plenty of personality traits to work with along with some crackling rapid-fire one-liners. It’s not the average buddy-cop comedy, to be certain.

That Gleeson could allow viewers to sympathize with such a morally bankrupt character is a testament to his range. Boyle emerges as the type of character who the average person might not want to live with, but wouldn’t mind hanging around, as long as they’ve got thick skin.

Rated R, 96 minutes