***/**** (3.5 stars)
DVD Release
Sergeant Gerry Boyle lives and
works within a small coastal community in Ireland, balancing his drug and
prostitute habit with the everyday crimes that occur in his patch. Following
the discovery of a body and the subsequent arrival of a humourless FBI agent,
Boyle finds himself being roped in to help hunt down a team of international
drug-smugglers.
Well, Brendan Gleeson, who plays
the eponymous guard, is obviously excellent: his small nuances and subtle line
delivery are spot on, and you could almost miss some of his ‘jokes’ if you
weren’t paying attention properly. Here, Gleeson has a multi-layered character
to get his teeth into, as Boyle is not simply an unorthodox policeman with a
drugs habit, but also son to a dying mother, and genuinely caring individual.
With the arrival of FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), we begin to break
down Boyle’s cold exterior, but his true nature is never fully revealed to us.
I would have liked more scenes based purely on the relationship between Boyle
and Everett as they appear to suddenly start getting on almost too quickly,
which is a shame as both actors could clearly spar off each other easily. The
drug-smugglers (Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong and David Wilmot) are all fine,
but at times I felt that the dialogue between them was a little strained, and I
felt the same with regards to some of Cheadle’s lines. It seems that a lot of
time was spent on Boyle and far less on the other characters, which is fine
because Gleeson is capable of carrying the film pretty much single-handedly,
but it does mean that the scenes that he isn’t in flag a little bit.
The humour is very black, and
almost cringe-inducing at times with how subversive and orthodox some of Boyle’s
comments are – I suggest that if you’re easily offended, this probably isn’t
the film for you! The humour is also incredibly subtle: small interjections and
comments made in normal tones of voice, silently observing the behaviour of
individuals, and cleverly framed shots are used throughout, replacing the loud,
bombastic humour that we would usually expect. The film isn’t ‘laugh out loud’
funny (in fact, it feels rather sad at some points), but the humour is clever,
well-written and well-acted and that is quite rare these days.
I realise that I may have sounded
a little over-critical of this film, but I did enjoy it when I was watching it
as it romps along at a fair speed and features some great acting. I was
expecting it to be more humorous after the DVD cover claimed that it was ‘hilarious’
and ‘laugh out loud funny’, but I thought it was a very well made, well-acted
and added an original twist on the usual buddy-cop film that Hollywood churns
out today.
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