Saturday January 21, 2012
Ireland 2011, 96 minutes, 15 certificate, Directed by John Michael McDonagh, Starring Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle
The cinema has entertained us with countless maverick cops over the years, and Brendan Gleeson adds another lovable rogue to the gallery with Gerry Boyle in McDonagh’s hilarious film – very much in the same vein as that of his brother Martin’s In Bruges.
Thorn in the side of his superiors in the Connemara Garda, Boyle is a man with his own questionable moral code, and scant respect for procedure, authority or, indeed, the law. He loves booze, fry-ups and prostitutes but also Russian literature, philosophy, and his mum.
Into his sleepy realm comes Don Cheadle’s FBI agent Wendell Everett, on the trail of international drug traffickers operating in Irish waters. Uptight and Ivy-league, disciplined and humourless, Everett represents the personal and professional antithesis of Boyle. Initially repulsed by his shambolic, boozy faux-racism and contempt for procedure, Everett is reluctantly forced to acknowledge and rely on Boyle’s methodologies.
The familiar good cop / bad cop formula transcends its generic conventions with laugh out loud brutal humour, razor sharp dialogue and the unlikely but carefully observed setting. McDonagh brings the sensibility of Quentin Tarantino and the opera of the Spaghetti Western to this bleakly beautiful coast and its isolated and suspicious community. A little violent, granted, and gloriously profane but hilarious, and great fun.