Today's Review: The Guard

Ooh, an Irish movie. They make movies in Ireland? I thought they just drank Guiness and cried about not being under our glorious English government.

The Guard stars Brendan Gleeson as a Garda, or Irish policeman, named Boyle. He's not too enthusiastic about his job, seeing as he frequents prostitutes and takes drugs he finds at crime scenes. But the discovery of a dead body in the sleepy town of Galway opens up a whole can of worms, as an FBI agent (Don Cheadle) comes investigating an international drug smuggling ring. Boyle is unwillingly dragged right into the middle, and finds himself uncovering more than he'd probably like to.

The Guard is a good black comedy. It certainly has tones of In Bruges contained throughout, and has all the great trademarks of a gangster movie. The drug smugglers themselves make a good trio, bantering and arguing between themselves, with a good old fashioned British geezer thrown in for good measure. All the Irish cast pull in good performances as townsfolk trying to figure out what's going on in the area, and Gleeson in particular plays a very good role, you can never quite figure out his ulterior motives, but you can certainly see his character is quite smart. The only low point in the casting is Cheadle. His character feels somewhat tacked on in order to get the bigger name in the cast. He doesn't really add much to the production, I'm sure the story could have progressed quite nicely without him, and he seems very out of place in the middle of Ireland.

Still, The Guard is a very entertaining movie. It's well paced, funny, and definitely worth a watch.

My rating: 4/5