The Guard

“I’m not sure if you are really motherfucking dumb or motherfucking smart,” says FBI agent Wendell Everett, played by Don Cheadle about Gerry Boyle, a policeman in a small coastal town in Ireland, while chasing a drug cartel.

But the film is not about drugs, or even about the FBI guy; about Boyle, a guard, as the policemen are called in Ireland.

The drug trade is on, so is arms smuggling for the IRA, and like all policeman, Boyle is also corrupt, only that he is his own man, and he won’t listen to anyone. He’s cynic, worldly wise, and detached. It does not matter if he sounds racist or politically incorrect. Basically he doesn’t give a damn, and the film projects it as a good thing.

So when he is forced to partner with a black American, racial tension is just part of the ball game, a whole lot of other things are going on... “I thought black people cannot ski,” he tells Wendell.

And Gerry is played by Brandan Gleeson, who makes an outrageously obnoxious character charming and believable.

Oh, and I just love the Irish accent. There’s such musicality in it. And though they all know English, they prefer to speak in Gaelic, especially when they don’t want to talk to a foreigner, as Wendell learns in a hard way.