The Guard (2011)

During the 80s and 90s Hollywood had a structure. There were certain genres of film that were guaranteed to please mass audiences and ensure box-office success. There were movies such as operatic sci-fi features, dismal horror franchises, and the recycled, yet inevitable, buddy-cop comedy. Defined as a crime film with plots involving two men of very different and conflicting personalities who are forced to work together to solve a crime, this sub-genre of the “buddy films” seemed to have become transparent until the late 2000s when the wave of Apatow buddy comedies (Pineapple Express, Superbad) seemed to saturate the market. The mismatched Gibson/Glover combination was replaced by crass humor, drug smoking, and over-exaggerated tween underdogs. Now, the classic genre seems to be returning with such films like Kevin Smith’s Cop-Out and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, and especially with John Michael McDonagh’s 2011 film The Guard. This film oozes buddy-cop from the beginning, boasting huge talent from the likes of Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, and the overused Mark Strong. Gleeson plays a small town Irish Garda (cop), who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and rule the coop. From the opening car accident, Gleeson is shown as an officer who realizes crime will happen; his role is to be there to clean it up. This isn’t a story about a corrupt cop, but merely a man understanding Ireland and reacting with the modern crime climate. Everything has its place, Gleeson is introduced to FBI Agent Everett (played with sheer boredom by Don Cheadle) by way of a faux-occult serial killing. By a cinematic miracle, the two join together to bring down an international drug smuggling ring, attempt to tell a few jokes, and finally end up causing more confusion than clarity throughout the hour and thirty minute ride.

Praised at Sundance for being funnier than Hot Fuzz and In Bruges combined, The Guard does allow Brendan Gleeson to take a leading comic role. This is a step away from the stoic historical figures and emotional dramas that viewers typically find on Gleeson’s platter. This feels fresh. While Hot Fuzz was more unchained pop-culture comedy, Gleeson provides the perfect blend of wit, emotion, and Irish vernacular. You laugh AT Simon Pegg; but in The Guard you laugh WITH Gleeson. Listening to him speak lines like...

“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...”

...one is introduced to a great taste of the culture and the foreign surroundings. This is Brendan Gleeson’s film. He controls the scenes, he leads the fight, and he provides the comic relief. His nomination for a Golden Globe demonstrates his dominance in this film. The Guard is worth the time merely for Gleeson alone, which leads me to Don Cheadle. Cheadle’s choice Everett’s characterization could, and should, have been done by anyone in the movie industry (animal or vegetable). He was monotonous, he was bland, he was dull, and he provided no value to the overall story or plot structure. Perhaps Cheadle was overshadowed by Gleeson’s Boyle, but the two did not fit the above mentioned definition of “buddy-cop”. There needed to be a driving force behind Cheadle instead of merely lap-dogging around Ireland with Gleeson. Jokes fell flat with Cheadle, unsure if he felt out of place in Ireland, or it was the writing, but when Cheadle goes door to door searching for evidence (or a witness), we are uncomfortable instead of laughing. Gleeson throws the jabs and zings, while Cheadle merely absorbs and shuffles his was from scene to scene. With this undesirable turn, The Guard instantly transforms into a Brendan Gleeson movie, with a lackluster supporting role by Don Cheadle (animal or vegetable).


Admitting, the cinematography was beautiful in this film. Larry Smith should be praised for taking the stark grey of Ireland and coupling it with some bright neon interiors of each scene. Alas, despite how beautiful this film looked, the story itself could not keep up. Written by In Bruges' brother John Michael McDonagh, our story is flawed in the execution. Small parts do not seem to fit within the frame of the whole. This should have been a simple drug story, but McDonagh intermits his screenplay with unannounced small twists (i.e. the occult murder) that try to keep us guessing, but instead sends you down winding paths with no end in sight. We know, early in the film, who our villains are (and if you don’t – look for the group of guys [Mark Strong] who are cast as villains in nearly every film), and this reveal should send us on a straight path to the ending. But, instead of being our guide to the dramatic conclusion, McDonagh’s script calls for a child picking up guns in the swamp and conversations on “liquidate” to fill space. When the ending arrives, the audience is so washed from the experience and mismatched storylines, that no emotion or excitement can be produced for the final seconds. In this viewer’s opinion, McDonagh was attempting to recreate the popularity of his brother’s film In Bruges by casting Cheadle in a lead role, but unlike Colin Ferrell and Brendon Gleeson’s chemistry, McDonagh doesn’t give enough for Cheadle to do, and it becomes a one-man film full of dissapointment.


In the end, The Guard is a fun ride, but not a perfect film. Watch this movie for Gleeson’s comedic talent and Don Cheadle’s epic failure. The pairing is weighted to the wrong side and despite the beauty of each scene, the story’s focus is too scattered for the short amount of time. Too many personalities attempt to fight for screen time forcing Gleeson to the top. This is a foreign film, and perhaps some of the Irish nuances were lost in translation, but not a film that should have been a bigger money-maker than The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Good, but nowhere near great. John Michael McDonagh doesn’t quite have the talent behind the camera as his brother Martin has already demonstrated, and recreating the same wheel doesn’t showcase your talent for cinematic imagination.