The Guard

Not everything they do in The Guard works, but it's still a funny movie, and Gleeson and Cheadle are fun to watch.

The first thing I noticed about The Guard was that I couldn't understand what they were saying, so I had to turn on the subtitles. They were definitely the worst subtitles I've ever seen. Super obtrusive, covered stuff up, and didn't even get all the dialogue. The movie was pretty funny, but a lot of things were kind of a swing and a miss for me.

I didn't always get Boyle. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not sometimes. It's a funnier movie if you know he's just messing around at all times, but I couldn't go with that assumption. I guess I didn't realize how much of a black comedy it was, either. When we're introduced to his mother, I kept expecting there to be some kind of joke, and she wasn't actually dying, it was something else. But there wasn't a joke, and she was dying. I was super surprised when McBride got shot, too. He kind of turned out to be a throwaway character. We didn't even really get to know him.

I hated the thing with the prostitutes. It was just gross and awkward, and you could tell that photo was going to be used for something later. It did give us the milkshake line, though, which was great - she asks him what he's going to do (about the blackmail situation) and he says "it'll pass soon" (about the brain freeze). And Gleeson actually ad libbed that, which makes it even better.

Cheadle was really good. He's the perfect straight man. All of the scenes with him trying to canvass the area were nice, except for the one with the little boy. That one was pretty flat, although it was funny when he had to step over the dog's leash.

I didn't really get Boyle's motivation for going after the bad guys at the end. I guess he wanted to do the right thing, but it just seemed like the stakes weren't high enough. I felt like the drugs weren't a big deal. I was just like..why is he even bothering to stop these guys? The shootout was a cool scene, though.

This is probably the only movie ever that I don't mind the ambiguity at the end of whether he lived or died; maybe because I didn't really care. He was pretty bored with his life, so no big deal if he died. I just assumed that he lived, though. He wasn't that far from the shore. I felt bad for Everett, though, waiting there for him to come back. That was sad.

In an interview with the director/main actors, they joked that they were going to do a sequel where Boyle goes to Atlanta. I'd like to see that, actually. I liked the line in the beginning when Boyle told McBride "go back to America with your appropriate Barack Obama." That was pretty funny. And it was great when he told Everett he didn't want to see pictures of his kids. No one ever wants to see, but no one says no, and he did, and Everett totally wasn't expecting it.

It was definitely a funny movie, but it didn't all work.