Best movie of this year hands down!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The story begins with a fat, potty-mouthed older Irish policeman investigating a murder scene, insulting the people he encounters and making supposedly funny gallows humor jokes. I realize this was supposed to be a dark comedy, but dark humor only succeeds if done properly, like in "Kind Hearts And Coronets".This movie has had surprisingly high ratings, and I cannot for the life of me understand why. If it was supposed to be a comedy, it was unfunny. If it was supposed to be an actioner, there was no action. If it was supposed to be a drama, I didn't care about any of the characters. I simply found it boring and turned it off early.

I had seen the poster and DVD cover for this British film many times, so I knew the leading Irish actor of the title, it had positive reviews by critics also, so I looked forward to trying it for myself. Basically Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Golden Globe nominated Brendan Gleeson) is an eccentric and unorthodox Irish police officer working for the Garda Síochána in a small town in Connemara, in the west of Ireland, confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humour, and a regular indulgence in prostitutes, drugs and alcohol, whilst on duty, but he does have a soft side as well, his mother Eileen (The Others' Fionnula Flanagan) is dying. Boyle has absolutely no interest in the international cocaine-smuggling and trafficking ring whatsoever, but that is what has brought American straitlaced and humourless FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to Ireland, he is leading an investigation to catch a gang of dangerous drug traffickers attempting to pull of a high profit deal. This turns into a fish-out-of-water partnership between Boyle and Everett, due to a fellow officer of Boyle's disappearing, they team up to catch these criminals, with different approaches to getting the job done, Boyle is a maverick with no moral code, while Everett is more professional. Also starring Liam Cunningham as Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, David Wilmot as Liam O'Leary, Rory Keenan as Aidan McBride, Mark Strong as Clive Cornell, Dominique McElligott as Aoife O'Carroll, Sarah Greene as Sinead Mulligan and Katarina Cas as Gabriela McBride. Gleeson excels as the foul-mouthed anti-hero, Cheadle does well as the on-point FBI agent disrupting the easy life of the title character, this is essentially an alternative cop-buddy movie, it is definitely all about Gleeson's character, a dreadful policeman slowly showing deeper humanity, the investigation and action sequences are worthwhile as well, all in all it is a gritty and amusing comedy thriller. It was nominated the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay. Very good!

"Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, these men are armed and dangerous, and you being an FBI agent you're more used to shooting at unarmed women and children."John Michael McDonagh's feature film debut is as irreverent as the main character of this movie played by Brendan Gleeson who isn't afraid of the repercussions his words might have on the rest of his peers. Gleeson plays an unorthodox Irish policeman of a small local community who when attending a meeting with an American FBI agent played by Don Cheadle makes a number of racist remarks such as "I thought only black lads were drug dealers?" and then justifies his behavior by claiming "I'm Irish. Racism is part of my culture." The Guard is basically a vehicle for Gleeson to make all sorts of irreverent remarks and that is where most of the laughs come from as you combine McDonagh's witty screenplay with Gleeson's performance. We'd seen Gleeson team up with McDonagh's brother in the past working with a similar sense of Irish humor in In Bruges. Your enjoyment for this film depends on your appreciation for this style of humor, which is very different from American comedies, since it is dry, rude, and insolent. McDonagh isn't worried about being politically correct and Gleeson's perfect delivery of each line made The Guard an entertaining experience for me. The humor doesn't always work like in In Bruges, but at least it hits most of its notes. Gleeson and Cheadle have a couple of great scenes together, but there are also some great supporting performances from Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, and David Wilmot. The opening scene is one of the funniest I've seen in recent months and it sets the tone of the film perfectly with its dark humor. A group of young kids are driving at a high speed in their sport vehicle and just as they pass a local policeman and the camera focuses on him we hear a loud crash. Inspector Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) walks to the sight of the accident and searches the pockets of the victims finding some drugs and taking them while making some witty remark about not wanting to tell their mother's what he has found. We are then introduced to Gerry and his confrontational personality when he teams up with FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) who is in the small Irish town investigating a multimillion dollar drug trafficking operation. Gerry doesn't seem too interested in the drug case, but when these drug dealers cross the line and try to intimidate him he decides they've gone to far. The movie could've easily fallen into predictable territory centering on the odd- couple humor, but thanks to Gleeson's performance and McDonagh's script it stands out as an original film. The Guard deconstructs much of the detective procedural elements we've seen in other movies and McDonagh seems to have a lot of fun doing this as he directs his own material. His directorial debut showed a lot of promise, and surprisingly in his sophomore film, Calvary, he shies away from the genre and enters into more dramatic territory although continuing to work with Gleeson. It seems the two have established a solid relationship as the director's writing seems perfect for the actor's delivery. The Guard is an unconventional character study that had me laughing during most of its runtime. http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

THE GUARD is an entirely predictable story of an ordinary policeman who gets involved with a major international drug smuggling ring, with guessable consequences. Despite the familiarity of the storyline - which gets more and more conventional as the running time goes on - this is a film which has some good stuff to recommend it, not least a sometimes witty script and a great sense of place.The film is set on the northwest coast of Ireland, particularly Galway and Connemara, and it's certainly a beautiful and underutilised backdrop (I should know - I'm lucky enough to have been there!). Despite chunks of lowbrow humour and an overwhelming number of expletives, there's some intellectual humour in the script here and there, like Mark Strong's criminal character who has something of a philosophical bent. Such elements make it workable, if slightly unwieldy.It also helps that the cast is pretty great. Brendan Gleeson has long been good enough to play a leading man, but it's only recently that he's been getting the roles. Don Cheadle banishes memories of his Cockney hijinks in OCEAN'S ELEVEN with a familiar fish-out-of-water role, but one which he acquits himself well with. The likes of Mark Strong and Liam Cunningham are old-handers at this sort of material, and make their scenes really sparkle. THE GUARD might tell a hackneyed story, but it has just enough charm of its own to get by.