John Michael McDonagh’s debut feature is a Western, cop-buddy, fish-out-of-water, “In Bruges”-style, talk-talkative scrappy fucker of a comedy, teasing and vulgar and so full of movie-movie love: you might miss how smart it is smiling at the sly goodness of performances by Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle. Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Gleeson) is a smart man playing dumb in the middle of his career in the outback of the West of Ireland in the tiny town of Connemara: while constantly needling his colleagues and superiors with his subversive humor, he’s a repository of the accumulated knowledge of the common man. After the disappearance of his new partner and reports of a huge drug run in the offing, an American FBI agent, Wendell Everett (Cheadle) arrives. They’re an immediate mismatch, and Cheadle’s range of physical gestures and expressions that ask, “Are you fucking with me?” is wide and deep. But it’s a profane and generous joy from the get-go. Produced by his younger brother, playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges,” “A Behanding in Spokane”), “The Guard” bears a similar joy in verbal byways and slipstreams, sly digressions of “craic,” or the Irish gift for a love of a bit of the banter. Not so jokingly, McDonagh says the movie is “John Ford meets Preston Sturges,” and the characters are sometimes just an inch from knowing they’re in a movie. McDonagh’s got impeccable taste in more than actors: The lovely, subdued, mock-spaghetti western score is by Calexico. Cinematographer Larry Smith’s diverse credits include “Eyes Wide Shut,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s claustrophobic “Fear X” and his bold “Bronson.” The stylized look of the movie also owes much to production designer and costume designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh. Talking to McDonagh recently, he told me his next movie is also a comedy, but it would also be a Bresson-style movie, about a priest’s temptations. Pray he keeps his creative crew from “The Guard.” With Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot, Rory Keenan, Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan, Dominique McElligott, Sarah Greene, Katarina Cas. 96m. (Ray Pride)
“The Guard” is now playing at Landmark Century, Evanston Cinearts and Landmark Renaissance.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Uncanny Ally: A Review Of M3GAN "M3GAN" sells itself in its first handful of seconds in how it introduces the handiwork of roboticist Gemma (Allison Williams, "Get Out") and her present product, PurrPetual Petz from Funki.
Spawn Sacrifice: A Review Of The Creator "The Creator" is richly detailed, punchy, pulpy, punkish entertainment that still has highly serious subjects in mind, without growing didactic and with substantial heart.
A Drag Getting Old: A Review Of Indiana Jones 5 In the protracted opening couple of reels, a very young, computer-crafted Harrison Ford plays a younger cultural marauder who first encounters the dull MacGuffin of the title.
Fine Line: A Review Of Shortcomings It's a season for the comeuppance of a curmudgeon in Randall Park's smart, biting "Shortcomings," adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same name.
RECOMMENDED
