The Guard

This film is full of contradictions and full of stereotypes that are more often than not turned on their head. We’re introduced at the beginning to Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson), who patrols a road on the west coast of Ireland and is the picture of decency; he promptly takes some LSD that he removes from the corpse of a joy rider and later on in the film cavorts with prostitutes. He’s joined by a new colleague who has transferred from the mean city of Dublin, Boyle despises the Americanisms he uses and spurns the proffered cappuccino, he wanted a latte.

In a way this is an exploration of the stereotypes and contradictions of Ireland and the image of Ireland. A country that until recently was enlivened by the Celtic Tiger and had net immigration for the first time in living memory. It is here a modern western democracy where people seem to be obsessed by criminal profiling but where people will only speak English when the fancy takes them. Boyle uses racist language to the keen, upstanding FBI Agent, played by Don Cheadle, because he says racism is part of his make up. It’s stretching a point but in a way he could be being racist about the Irish in saying that they’re inherently racist.

We find out later on that Boyle is entranced by America after he connects with the FBI Agent on the hunt for drug smugglers. He really is the key to this, Boyle admits to him that he intentionally winds people up and that he’s playing to stereotypes. Once they’ve weighed each other up there is the stereotype of the opposites attracted buddy cop partnership. That’s how the case is cracked really, as it always is.

I loved a beautifully executed scene whereby the drug traffickers discuss their favourite philosophers and their favourite quotes. These are of course those who are intent on destroying life as we know it by peddling their foul substances, again a sublime contradiction.