Foul-mouthed Gleeson a delight in ‘The Guard’

Sgt. Gerry Boyle, Brendan Gleeson’s brilliantly sardonic Irish police officer of “The Guard,” describes himself as “the last of the independents.”

Like a remote western hero, he’s stationed in rural Galway. He curses forensic experts as “prima donnas,” casually samples the drugs found on a fresh body and, when his partner answers “Right away, Sarge!” Doyle rolls his eyes and wonders if he’s confused Ireland for Detroit.

The brothers McDonagh surely bear an independent streak, too. “The Guard” is written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, the older brother of the playwright and “In Bruges” writer-director, Martin McDonagh.

They have their differences, of course, but both have a wry, dark sensibility and a fondness for ruthlessly unsentimental absurdity. And both have put the talented Gleeson to fine use.

The craggy-faced Boyle is oddly busy for his country outpost. There’s a mysterious murder and his newly transferred partner (Rory Keenan) goes missing. A large drug shipment from the Dominican Republic is expected to land soon on Galway’s shores, which brings FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle, who also produces) in hopes of interceding it.

Here, the film’s buddy-cop structure takes hold, and a thoroughly entertaining dynamic between Gleeson and Cheadle sets in. Suit-clad and officious, Everett is seemingly Boyle’s opposite. Well-educated and professional, Everett represents the American ideals Boyle curses.

Boyle plays the part of country rube, excusing his blatant racism as part of his Irish culture. He does it all in a deadpan that confuses most everyone, but Gleeson’s occasional smirks — and his gradually revealed innate decency — make it clear: Boyle is, as he says, “only havin’ a bit of fun.”

But the two also find unlikely common ground.

A trio of criminals (Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham, David Wilmot) are all lurking, awaiting the shipment. In between easy violence, they banter on philosophy, talking Nietzsche and Bertram Russell.

It’s perhaps a bit too Tarantino-esque, but it’s reflective of much of “The Guard”: characters are rarely all they seem. Boyle, too, works in some highbrow references, saying he never had the patience for any of the Russian novelists, before (fittingly) declaring Gogol the exception.

As a fish out of water, Cheadle cuts a sharp figure in the raw Irish countryside. He’s an excellent straight man to Gleeson, contorting his face into a wide variety of disbelieving reactions to Boyle’s idiosyncrasies. But gradually, he’s in on the joke, too.

Gleeson, though, gets to have the real fun. The character actor has rarely been given such a chance to offend, curse and mock.

Some sentiment does sneak in, particularly through the character of Boyle’s dying mother (Fionnula Flanagan). But when she heckles a slow-moving resident at her retirement home, it’s obvious where her son gets his extreme candor.

Such liveliness is the best quality in “The Guard.” In a cinema world so awash in either corporate flatness or high-art pretension, “The Guard” is a proud, foul-mouthed exception.

“The Guard”

. . .

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle

Directed by: John Michael McDonagh

Other: A Sony Pictures Classics release. Rated R for pervasive language and violence. Opening at Renaissance Place in Highland Park, Evanston CineArts 6 and Century Cinema in Chicago. 96 minutes