ViewGuide

Created Aug 25, 2011 06:53AM PST • Edited Aug 25, 2012 03:29AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   The Guard touches perfection here and there, is otherwise mostly great, but gets held back by a merely OK screenplay. Fortunately a crafty Brendan Gleeson drives plenty of deadpan comedy for a very good movie.

   So what if it’s not a classic. It’s got brilliant visuals, a handful of LOLs and several gorgeous girls. That’s a recipe for success in Ireland or anywhere else.

   What kind of guard are we talking about here? The Gardaí (“Guardians”) is the Irish police force. So a garda is a national cop & local constable all in one. Garda rhymes with scared. In Ireland it does anyway.

   Gleeson plays a Garda who’s a little over the edge: mildly corrupt and prone to self-medicating, but extremely canny and a good cop in the end. When a major drug smuggling interdiction comes to his western Irish hamlet, all hell breaks loose.

   Great cast, great direction and outstanding visuals make The Guard a safe bet for lighthearted viewing. Given its small theatrical run, look for it soon OD.

   That said, most guys will find Dominique McElligott’s appearance worth the price of a ticket all by herself. Even better, she’s not working alone. That’s her and her partner in the WikChip. Hands up!

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Easily Brendan Gleeson’s best performance, at least to this non-Brendan Gleeson fan. Couldn’t warm up to him in In Bruges, mostly because I couldn’t warm up to In Bruges. This ain’t that. He’s kinda likable as a cliche cop in his native Ireland.

   Don Cheadle acquits himself well as an FBI Agent on the trail of $500 million in cocaine, or “half a billion,” as the movie cheekily points out. One way to snag lucky parts like this is to make your own opportunities. Cheadle does, appearing in the credits twice, as Executive Producer and co-star.

   Dominique McElligott lights up the screen, working alongside fellow gorgeous girl Sarah Greene. McElligott – the living pinup from Moon – deserves leading lady status. If Helen of Troy’s beauty launched 1,000 ships, Dominique of Dublin’s beauty is at least a Centihelen, capable of getting 100 screws turning. Properly handled, Miss McElligott could be the second coming of Grace Kelly.

   Mark Strong makes a killer killer, as he proved in Kick-Ass and Sherlock Holmes, to name two. The guy never gives a bad performance.

   Other highlights from the strong cast:

   • Fionnula Flanagan as Gleeson’s cancer-stricken Mum, hard-drinking & beautifully poetic till the end.
   • Slovenian beauty Katarina Cas combines piercing glamour with real acting chops, here as the visa-wife of an Irishman. Cas could go far.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Writer-director John Michael McDonagh deserves another commission after this mostly successful maiden voyage. That said, he’s apparently a better director than screenwriter.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Barely OK 2.0

13. Music Really Great 4.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Most shots are interesting both foreground and background. Two examples among many: A desolate road scene has modern windmills rotating in the background; A restaurant scene takes place in a booth below a comically active photo of a location important to the plot.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

    Rude and randy.

17. Sex Titillating 2.3

18. Violence Fierce 1.9

19. Rudeness Profane 2.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.6

24. Physical Natural 1.0