The Guard is an Irish comedy written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, the brother of the writer/director of In Bruges. You know how you can sometimes see similarities in the mannerisms of siblings or just relations in general, similar yet different, well the same seems to be true of the writing style of these two brothers. I don't mean to do the Guard a disservice in any way, I think it is an individual film, and one of my favourite films of last year without a shadow of a doubt, but I also think that the comparison between this and In Bruges is inevitable and justified.
The Guard follows Sgt Boyle, a Galway police officer. Things are relatively calm in Glaway, and Sgt Boyle is definitely not a traditional police officer. Indeed the film begins with his dropping a tab of LSD whilst staring into the sea after disposing of the rest of the drugs from a corpse so as not to upset the dead kids parents. This ultimately sums up Sgt Boyle; he's a very flawed man, but has a good heart that is essentially why you end up loving him. The story really kicks off when Agent Everett (played by Don Cheadle) arrives from the FBI to investigate drug smuggling that he suspects will occur by boat on the coast of Ireland. One of the suspects he is after had just shown up a corpse on Sgt Boyle's beat, so the two become an unlikely duo in a quest to stop the drugs entering the country. I'm struggling not to make this sound like a generic and quite frankly shit cop buddy movie, but trust me, this film is so much more than that.
The humour in this film feels very Irish (which shouldn't come as a surprise considering the Irish cast/writer/director/setting, and adds credence to the idea that the Irish are a naturally funny people. Brendan Gleeson is once again wonderful in his role as the 'either really fucking dumb or really fucking smart' Sgt Boyle, and has a supporting cast, from the young kid who helps him, to his elderly dying mother, everyone in this film fits in perfectly. I don't think I've stressed enough here just how funny this film is. Written on paper many of the jokes may raise a chuckle, but delivered in the film they are truely wonderful. Whether it's Sgt Boyle declaring to Agent Everett that he thought that 'only black fellas were drug dealers', then declaring 'I'm Irish, racism's part of my culture' or the three drug smugglers sitting in a car discussing their favourite philosophers - or one of them declaring that he's not a psychopath... he's a sociopath, though he doesn't really know the difference. You will find yourself quoting this film long after it's over, and chuckling to yourself or amongst friends who have seen it at whichever bits tickle you the most.
A couple of warnings, it's a very sweary film, so don't go into it if you're not comfortable with that sort of thing, it's also not politically correct, I do not mean that the film is racist of devoid of morals, instead that it plays with the conventions of what is acceptable, Sgt Boyle is very much old school, doesn't believe in PC, whereas Agent Everett is the opposite. In the same way that some of the best comedy treads a thin line between what is acceptable and what is not (look at any of Armando Iannucci's stuff), the Guard too treads that line at times, and always wins. This was one of the funniest films I've seen in a long while, and one of the best films of 2011, check it out if you can, it's well worth it.
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