The Guard is a darkly funny Irish crime drama that seems to owe a debt both to American Westerns and the plays of David Mamet. (It’s the sort of movie where criminal lowlifes engage in ironic banter peppered with literary references.)

The story takes place in Connemara, a rocky wilderness on the west coast of Ireland which was largely depopulated during the Great Famine and has never really recovered. The main character is Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson), a Garda (police officer.) He is a big dissipated man, grumpy, disreputable, bigoted and a Class A troll. However he is smarter and tougher than he looks and he has his own unique sense of honor.

In this story he gets two new people to troll and two crimes to investigate. His first victim is Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) a naive young Garda fresh from the big city. They are soon investigating a mysterious murder with occult overtones.

An even better foil is Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) a black American FBI agent who is trying to track down a drug gang that is supposedly planning to smuggle 500 million dollars worth of cocaine into the country. The interplay between these two is priceless.

Could the two crimes be connected? What do you think?

This movie has a wealth of colorful characters, most of whom seem to have something to hide and all of whom have a gift for colorful speech. (Except for the American who is pretty much a straight-arrow straight man. But I guess the movie needs one such character for balance.)