“What a beautiful fucking day,” exclaims Brendan Gleeson at the start of this Irish comedy-drama, and few actors can muster such depth of feeling in uttering such a sentiment. The paunchy actor plays Sergeant Gerry Boyle, who finds himself temporarily partnered with an FBI agent (Don Cheadle) when some international drug smugglers, and a murder victim, wind up in his ordinarily quiet hamlet.
There are elements of a mismatched buddy comedy. When Boyle, speaking of drug smugglers who use submarines to avoid detection, says you have to admire their ingenuity, the agent says drily, “No, you don’t.” Quite a lot of the humor is dry here, as when the one of the smugglers, who’s English, corrects the others, who are Irish, on the matter of the nationality of philosopher Bertrand Russell.
The story also has the fish-out-of-water element, as one character actually points out. The FBI man’s introduction to Boyle involves racial insults, and his attempt to do some sleuthing on his own—it’s the sergeant’s day off, which even a murder investigation won’t impede—finds the locals pretending to only speak Gaelic. It’s unclear whether his race or his being an outsider has more to do with this.
The action element is also not neglected, although it’s saved for the ending. But, more than anything else, the film is a character drama and a vehicle for Gleeson. Boyle can seem like a bumpkin one moment, then show another side in the next scene. The agent tells Boyle, “I can’t tell if you’re mutherfuckin’ stupid or mutherfuckin’ smart.” In quoting this, I may falsely suggest that this is a rather broad film, but in general it’s understated and realistic. Boyle, a single man, is prone to insulting coworkers and committing certain victimless crimes from time to time, but has a soft spot for his dying mother, Croatian widows, and Disney World. It takes the length of this brief movie to reveal his true nature, and writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin McDonagh) lets the character percolate until the satisfying conclusion.
viewed 9/8/11, 7:15 pm at Ritz 5 and reviewed 9/8/11
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