The Guard (2011)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Sergeant Gerry Boyle	Brendan Gleeson	½
FBI Agent Wendell Everett	Don Cheadle
Clive Cornell	Mark Strong
Francis Sheedy-Skeffington	Liam Cunningham
Eileen Boyle	Fionnula Flanagan
Eugene Moloney	Michael Og Lane
Liam O'Leary	David Wilmot
Sinead Mulligan	Sarah Greene
Garda Aidan McBride	Rory Keenan
Aoife O'Carroll	Dominique McElligott

Review

The Guard, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, older brother of Martin McDonagh who made the incomparable In Bruges in 2008, is a crime-comedy with just about the strongest Irish identity in the history of cinema. Set and filmed in Ireland with chiefly Irish actors, The Guard alternates between being proud and abashed about its Irishness; one minute tributing the existence of its characters and environments, the next mocking it with a beautifully weighted sarcasm. The downplayed humorous tone is McDonagh's merit. He takes full advantage of his crisp writing, which is a traditional crime story in essence, but with some very distinct peculiarities that he knows how to accentuate and make count. His brilliant tool is the ever infallible Brendan Gleeson, who is so remarkably gifted at making his characters his own, even when it's one as preposterous as this one. Don Cheadle's character enables McDonagh's twisted take on the buddy/partner formula, and the possibilities for fun between these two poles apart are as many as they are well utilized.