The Guard (2011)

I saw this film on a trans-Atlantic flight, and had never heard of it before I found it on my menu of possible options. It didn't even come up as a 'recent movie' and I would have missed it completely if my spouse hadn't been perusing the comedies (having exhausted the attractive action options already)--well, happy I am that he found it. Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle star in this quirky Irish darkly comic movie. I am a huge Cheadle fan, and I would seek out a Brendan Gleeson movie in the future. Gleeson stars as Sgt. Gerry Boyle, a police officer in County Galway. If we are lulled by the beauty of the scenery, any romanticism is quickly squashed in the opening scene--an intoxicated driver has a grizzly crash, and when the responding police officer finds drugs in his pocket, he removes them, ingests some, and chides the dead man for leaving evidence on a corpse that would make his mother less than pleased. So this is no paradise. Enter Cheadle as a visiting FBI officer Wendell Everett, who is charged with tracking the entry of a large cocaine shipment en route from Latin America. They have identified the local players, and are some what surprised to learn that one of them has already been killed. The two make an unlikely couple of crime fighters who are both hilarious and effective. Highly recommended.