“Violent, profane and very funny” 95% on Rotten Tomatoes for this gem.
“P.C culture gone mad,” today’s generation are too soft,” you just can’t get away with that sort of stuff nowadays.”
The usual statements from people that feel that they’re lost in a generation of do-gooders. Well, if you’re looking for a film that’s the complete opposite to this rhetoric, The Guard is just the thing for you.
Like the blackest pint of jet black Guinness, John Michael McDonagh’s directorial debut is that rarity, a film that respects the buddy cop formula while also being bold enough to stand alone as its own film with a unique voice.
In the film, the extraordinarily talented Brendan Gleeson plays an unorthodox Irish policeman that’s unlike anything you’ve seen before.
He drinks, uses drugs, curses like a sailor and whores around… but it’s impossible not to love him.
For fans of the crime genre, there’s murder, blackmail, drug trafficking and rural police corruption at play, but it’s the hilarious scenes between Gleeson and Don Cheadle’s up-tight F.B.I. agent that really resonate.
Despite being world’s apart on everything, the two policemen must join forces to take on this drug-smuggling gang.
Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleason) is a superb comic creation because the eccentric small-town cop is unashamed about his confrontational and crass personality. He’s a maverick with his own moral code and an affinity for booze, drugs, swearing, sex and erm, milkshakes.
With a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s clear that the critics absolutely adore this gem and since being released, The Guard has become a bonafide cult-classic.
Aside from Gleeson and Cheadle, there’s also stellar cast throughout with Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan, David Wilmot and Laurence Kinlan all starring.
Here’s what some reviewers have said about it:
Empire – “Among the most purely entertaining films of the year, which cuts its laughter with a dose of Celtic melancholy. It still delivers cop/action requirements – shoot-outs, revenges, daring deeds – and chances are, we’ll be quoting lines from this forever.”
Boston Globe – “The movie is more pure, profane enjoyment than a body should have.”
Variety – “Rudely funny and faintly melancholic, both qualities stemming from the atmospheric backdrop of Ireland’s west coast, screenwriter John Michael McDonagh’s directorial debut is a stylish lark whose many disparate elements somehow manage to go down as smoothly as Guinness. ”
Set record for The Guard when it airs on Film4 at 1:45am.
Clip via –Â Transmission Films
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