Review of The Guard (2011) by Kent D — 10 Jan 2012

With his film debut, "In Bruges" (coming after a string of celebrated plays), Martin McDonaugh did what Quentin Tarantino does at his best, and he did it better--the film was a very funny, very violent crime story with memorable characters exploring important philosophical and theological ideas.

I was looking forward to McDonaugh's brother's new film, "The Guard," which has one of the same stars as "In Bruges" (the always great Brendan Gleeson) and another crime-comedy-drama story.

What the film lacks is the religious roots that made "In Bruges" so compelling and so unexpectedly moving--or roots of any kind, for that matter. Instead, it's something like a spaghetti western (the fastest-paced, most stylized of genres) set in Ireland (the most pastoral and meandering of settings)--it's a fun film, it's got some good performances and dialogue, but, while the film acknowledges its cliches it never really transcends them.

While the combination of the tight plotting with the more digressive approach to comedy and character might have been an exciting yin and yang, the split personality never quite seems to work in the film's favor--we find out important plot points in passing conversation (the subplot with Gleeson's mother is particularly, and strangely, underdeveloped), and the characterizations never go much beyond the crazy, unconventional cop (with, I suppose, a heart of gold) and.

.. the other guy. There lots of self-conscious quirkiness going on, including the Wes Anderson-esque head-on framing (which no one else--except Kaurismaki, who did it before Anderson showed up--seems to be able to pull off) and an unconventional and ironic score from Calexico, but all these stylistic flourishes feel worse than unnecessary, they're uninspired, and just seem indie-perfunctory.

It all wraps up in shootouts and explosions, but "The Guard" doesn't really have anything to say, and it's hard to justify such an intermittently amusing journey without some sort of compelling thematic throughline.