Director: John Michael McDonagh
Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Run Time: 96 minutes
Film: 2 out of 5 stars
Extras: 3.5 out of 5 stars
“The Guard” is a comedy that mixes the following plot points murder, blackmail, drug trafficking, and police corruption. When you put that together and add it to a great cast including Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle, you expect a great turnout. Unfortunately the film is quite slow moving and really doesn’t take off until the closing scene. The humor is the film is dark and doesn’t really show up much or if it does at all I completely missed it. Brendan Gleeson was great in the role of the clueless but sharp cop but Don Cheadle feel a little bit under used and doesn’t really like he belongs here.
The general plot of the film follows two cops (Gleeson and Cheadle) who join forces to take on an international drug-smuggling gang. One cop is an over the top-no rules Irish policeman and the other is a by-the-books FBI agent who is out of place in his environment.
The special features on this disc are definitely packed. There is a decent audio commentary with the director John Michael McDonagh and the film’s stars Don Cheadle & Brendan Gleeson. “The Second Death” is a short film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh and served as the basis for character Sergeant Gerry Boyle. “Making of The Guard” is brief look at the behind the scenes for the film. It is decent but runs less than 20 minutes overall. The outtakes, The deleted scenes include three short scenes running about 6 minutes total. The extended scenes are a lot longer, running about 20 minutes, and worth checking out for sure. If the commentary isn’t enough to finish off the special features is an fun Q&A With Don Cheadle, Brendan Gleeson and John Michael McDonagh done during the LA Film Fest.