Don Cheadle & Brendan Gleeson Play Good Cop, Bad Cop in The Guard

Many times when a film based in the world of a police department, FBI agency or other law enforcement organization comes along, there's the standard confrontation between an unconventional, off-the-leash lawman clashing with a by-the-book, oh so serious counterpart. While this has become a dishearteningly predictable element of crime based films, what really makes or breaks films like this is the casting. In this case, I might be willing to allow cliche characters in favor of great casting as Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle have been cast as unlikely partners in director John Michael McDonagh's new film The Guard.

Gleeson plays Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett (Cheadle) to his door. However, mocking and undermining Everett's uptight ...