There’s a scene midway through The Guard where Brendon Gleeson and Don Cheadle have an extended conversation in a pub. Cheadle’s explaining some details of the drug ring and criminals the two are trying to stop. Gleeson looks like a boy being handed his homework assignment and is far more engaged in his beer and the pub’s shoot-’em-up arcade game.
Then you notice that Gleeson’s plastic arcade gun is pressed directly against the screen—he’s cheating. Now if you don’t know anything about arcade games you may miss it, even if you do, you may miss it, and while it doesn’t quite save the scene from being some overly long exposition, it’s a fantastic character touch. And that’s kind of the The Guardin a nutshell: a movie that’s willing to make sacrifices of pacing, plot, and whatever else if it can just have some more fun with its protagonist.
And, for the most part, it works, thanks to Gleeson, who plays Boyle, a roly-poly Irish West County policeman who sees himself as slightly above the law. He’s not the type of fellow who’d commit actual murder, mind you, but he doesn’t mind stopping off at the pub for a quick pint while on duty or even sampling a spot of acid now and then.
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