Writer/director John Michael McDonagh creates movies that are
minor works of art. For example, when the screen is filled with the
smiling potato face of Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson), the
Irish cop proclaims with profound appreciation, “That’s beautiful.
It’s just F—ing beautiful.” Then the camera shifts to let the
audience see the dull, chilling gray, West Irish coast that
prompted this heartfelt sense of beauty. For this is Boyle’s
neighborhood. Like the mythic Irish cop on the beat, the Connemara
coast is his territory and he knows everyone and almost everything
that goes on in his neck of the woods.
Eccentric to say the least, he first meets American drug agent
Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) at a slide show briefing showing
photos of four drug smugglers who are expected to rendezvous with a
ship somewhere along the coast. “I thought only Blacks were drug
pushers,” Boyle pipes up. “And Mexicans…What do they call them?
Mules?” Obviously offended by these non-PC remarks, Everett
bristles, and supports the local police captain when he threatens
Boyle with disciplinary action. “You are suspended,” splutters the
captain. “I don’t F—ing think so,” responds Boyle. “Because there
aren’t four drug smugglers, there’s three. That one’s in the morgue
with a bullet hole in his forehead.”
We next see Boyle and Everett driving across the bleak Irish
countryside. “You are either very dumb, or very smart,” the
American observes, and Boyle’s only reply is a wide grin. Then
Everett starts laying out the logistics for their next moves.
“What’s this ‘We’ sh-t?” Boyle asks. “It’s my day off tomorrow.
I’ve had it scheduled for weeks. The investigation can wait 24
hours.”
The “it” Boyle refers to is his rendezvous with two Glasgow
prostitutes. Dressed in short-skirted cop uniforms, the two young
women sashay up to Boyle on the street. “I’ve rented a hotel room
for the night,” he announces, they squeak with delight, and the
three link arms to head off for a rollicking threesome.
Meanwhile, Everett canvasses the crime scene neighbors, but with
his silk tie and tailored suit he quickly discovers he is at a
disadvantage. “You don’t even know that most folk in West Ireland
speak Gaelic,” Boyle observes. “And you call me stupid.”
The film is filled with abrupt tonal shifts where give-and-take
banter is followed by brutal realism. With a purported half-billion
dollars in drugs changing hands, the underlying framework is deadly
serious. For example, Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan), the only other
cop in Boyle’s station, has gone missing. When his Garda car is
found at a spot frequented by suicides, the man’s Croatia-born wife
(Katarina Cass) reveals a secret to Boyle. “Aiden is gay,” she
tells the sergeant. “Was it for the visa?” Boyle shrewdly asks.
“That and respectability for him,” she admits.
Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle are what makes this work. There
seamless styles (think “In Bruges” meets “Hotel Rwanda”) mesh well
together, and they are aided by great supporting characters like
the three surviving smugglers. The ringleader (Liam Cunningham)
likes to drop quotes from famous philosophers into the
conversation. His English sidekick (Mark Strong) won’t help move a
dead body because “When I applied for the job of international drug
smuggler, I didn’t say anything about heavy lifting.” The bug-eyed
third smuggler (David Wilmot) does the killing, but doesn’t like
being called a psychopath. “I’m a sociopath,” he protests. “They
explained the difference to me, but I don’t recall what it is.”
And there is a brief but beautiful performance by Fiona Flanagan
as Boyle’s terminally ill mother. “You were always a good lad,” she
says between sips of whisky and Guinness, prompting a “No, I
wasn’t” from her son. “Well,” she replies,” let’s just pretend you
were.”
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