In his feature directing debut, John Michael McDonagh has attempted a hybrid of several styles: The Guard is, by turns, a low-key character study laced with offbeat humor, a buddy-cop culture clash, a routine policier, and a labored genre deconstruction. These contradictory elements cancel each other out, resulting in a film that is neither fish nor fowl.
When a crook murdered in a sleepy town in the West of Ireland is linked to an international drug-smuggling ring, unwelcome forces impose upon Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson), a police sergeant content with a life of mild corruption. The primary thorn in Boyle’s side is Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), the FBI agent heading the sting operation. Boyle at first refuses to cooperate, and when he later offers his help, the arrogant American ignores him. Duty bound in spite of his anti-authoritarianism, Boyle ultimately saves the day, and — predictably — the corrupt cop turns out to be the only honest man on the force.
McDonagh is more interested in character than plot, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, he’s also more interested in undergrad self-consciousness than genuine emotion, which frustrates the work of his cast to create fully realized human beings. The charismatic Gleeson adds another genial curmudgeon to his gallery, but Cheadle is stuck with an underwritten character who’s never placed on equal footing with his sparring partner. What could have been a fascinating battle of wills remains unbalanced throughout, robbing the eventual alliance of impact. The result is a bit like Beverly Hills Cop in reverse — the cocky black outsider gets schooled by the provincial white schlub. Meanwhile, the garrulous drug traffickers, with their debates about philosophy, pop music, and the meaning of life, are the clearest markers of the Tarantinoland into which this film ultimately stumbles.
The script has some very Irish drollery, and there are flashes of visual wit — for example, a boy trying to ride a pink bicycle with training wheels while walking a dog on a leash, and one shot that I swear is an homage to the covers of the first two Love albums. And references to Oblomov underscore the theme of apathy (though there’s a spoiler for viewers who haven’t read Ivan Goncharov’s novel). But such moments are overwhelmed by the thick overlay of half-baked postmodernism, which doesn’t excuse the film’s contrivances. Not helping matters is the baffling music score by Calexico, full of castanets and flamenco guitar, which resolves into a Spaghetti Western theme for the tongue-in-cheek action finale, as if to remind us that it’s all a joke.
The Guard contains maddening hints of a more interesting and painfully human movie, not just in the prickly give-and-take between Gleeson and Cheadle, but in Gleeson’s relationship with his terminally ill mother (Fionnula Flanagan, who, by the way, is only 13 years older than Gleeson) and in a subplot involving a hapless younger cop and his immigrant wife (Rory Keenan and Katarina Cas). Too bad McDonagh snuffed these signs of life by going all meta.