Garda Sergeant Gerry Boyle, BRENDAN GLEESON, is a very laid-back and non-PC representative of the forces of law and order in Galway, on Ireland's west coast, where many of the locals don't speak English. He's assigned a new partner, McBride (RORY KEENAN), an eager beaver who has the bad luck to run across three very bad guys - LIAM CUNNINGHAM, MARK STRONG, DAVID WILMOT - on his first day on the job.

FBI agent Wendell Everett, DON CHEADLE, arrives in Galway to investigate drug-running - and he's a very different kind of law officer from Gerry Boyle. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, whose brother, Martin, wrote and directed the wonderful IN BRUGES, which also starred Brendan Gleeson, this is a suspense thriller with some very black comic elements, but it's also a fine character study. Gleeson is marvellous as Boyle who, despite his obvious shortcomings, is a more or less honest cop in what seems like a sea of corruption. Every character here is well drawn - DON CHEADLE'S uptight FBI officer, KATARINA CAS as the Croatian wife of the unlucky McBride, DOMINIQUE MCELLIGOTT as one of Gerry's prostitute friends - they're all very good indeed.

Augmenting a smart, witty screenplay is magnificent Scope camerawork by Larry Smith, using beautiful locations around the west coast of Ireland, which is a pretty dangerous place if this thoroughly entertaining and exceptionally well acted film is to be believed.



At The Movies
Copyright ABC

This movie made me smile and even laugh out loud. In fact, it gave me more pleasure than any aliens, robots or superheroes have all summer. That’s because it’s doggedly offbeat and completely original. It also provides a showcase for two fine actors, Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle.

Gleeson may be known to a wide audience as Mad Eye Moody in the Harry Potter series, but I think of him as the rock-solid star of such films as The General and In Bruges. He’s an actor who can effortlessly command the screen, as he does here playing a true iconoclast, a boorish policeman in the Irish seaside town of Connemara who is an enigma to everyone around him - especially his colleagues. He’s not the likeliest asset to an American FBI agent assigned to intercept a big, international drug deal. But, as it turns out, Gleeson is incorruptible.

Cheadle mostly plays straight-man to Gleeson in this odd-couple pairing, but his character is far from routine. He’s an exceptional American lawman who thinks he’s on top of things until he encounters the wary, tight-lipped citizens of Connemara, and the wildly unpredictable cop who may or may not be in a position to help him.

Admittedly, writer-director John Michael McDonagh (whose brother Martin wrote and directed "In Bruges") goes out of his way to bring quirks to every character and every scene in his film—even in his highly stylized production design—but it’s all in the cause of outlandish amusement. The bad guys, for instance, are no ordinary thugs, but an incongruously intellectual trio (played by the formidable actors Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, and David Wilmot) who engage in cerebral conversations.

This is my idea of fresh, invigorating entertainment for grownups…a


Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Copyright Leonard Maltin