21 Jump Street

Grade: B

I honestly went into Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 21 Jump Street expecting not to like it. I’m not entirely sure why either. I like Jonah Hill. I don’t like Channing Tatum but I figured he shouldn’t have a whole lot of trouble playing a jock-y cop in a light comedy. It was getting good reviews and people whose opinions I trust really seemed to like it. I’m not big on remakes but this one actually made some sense. All signs point to me probably liking it, but for some reason I was still skeptical. That reason is I’m a cynic. It’s as simple as that. I can’t help but be cautious of something like this but if you leave this movie and didn’t at least laugh a ton you are more than just a cynic, you don’t have a sense of humor and are probably a jerk that nobody likes. Seriously though, this movie is funny.

I could wax poetic about how it perfectly walks the line between too self-aware and just aware enough or how it avoided falling into the biggest problem with most remakes and nostalgia passion projects of just being the exact same thing and forgetting to be an enjoyable movie on its own, but that would be a waste of everyone’s time because it’s just simply funny and that trumps all.

There isn’t a real reason to go into the plot as I’m sure you all know it but for the sake of framing the review and making it easier on me I will do it. Jonah Hill (who lost a bunch of weight for this role and it actually doesn’t distract you as much as you think it would) plays Schmidt, a guy who was smart in high school but never got any girls. Channing Tatum plays Jenko, a guy who was not very smart in high school but was cool, had long flowing hair, was great at sports, and got all the girls. You may think I’m oversimplifying this as I like to do but this is almost literally how the movie introduces the characters, and it was a nice touch. The writers knew what this movie is and didn’t waste any time trying to be subtle about setting up the characters. It’s as if they said “you and I both know who they are, so what is the point of wasting time that could be spent on funny bits with setting them up?” They even make some nice mid-aughts jokes in the process as we get to see Jonah Hill dressed as your typical jnco jeans, white t, ball bearing necklace wearing, and bleach blonde haired Eminem fan (I will never stop laughing at that look, it was right up there with every fashionable thing from the 80’s in terms of absolutely absurd fashion trends).

They then go through police academy training where they find each can help the other and become best friends. Next we see them as security guards trying to arrest some drug dealers way above their heads. Things of course go awry and they end up on their last legs at Jump Street where their Captain (played by Ice Cube who while a funny character could have probably been funnier with a better actor) assigns them to a local high school to try and stop the spreading of a new drug. Once they get to the high school they find out that things aren’t how they used to be. The cool kids aren’t the big jocks anymore. Instead they are vegan and like studying and some of them are homosexual and they drive biodiesel cars. Everything they knew before is flipped on its head and through a mistake by Jenko, Schmidt becomes a part of the cool kids and Jenko becomes one of the nerds.

The nerds are played by a bunch of relatively unknowns and outside of their nerdy wisdom they don’t really play a big part. The cool kids though play a much more prominent role. The head cool kid is played by Dave Franco (James’ brother) and anyone who has seen Scrubs: Med School knows that he is more than capable of playing an entitled douche. In fact he is starting to corner the douche market and I for one welcome it. He plays smarmy and self-involved better than any other actor his age right now. The love interest and head girl of the group is played by Brie Larson who is also playing in her wheelhouse as the too cool for anything, yet totally still wants to do everything Molly.

There is also an impressive tertiary cast consisting of the always appropriately over the top Rob Riggle playing the track coach, Chris Parnell perfectly cast as the very odd acting teacher, Ellie Kemper does a great job as Jenko’s science teacher who is equal parts crazy/confused by her attraction to Jenko, and even Nick Offerman shows up for a few minutes because everything is better with Ron Swanson.

The rest of the movie plays out how you would expect but that’s really not the point. Again, the point is that it is really funny. My favorite line of the whole movie was Channing Tatum yelling “Fuck science!” then walking out of his class while supposedly answering a question in class. That’s the great thing about this movie. Fuck science is a funny phrase in and of itself but add a funny context and it’s hilarious. I won’t say too much so I don’t ruin the joke, but that is this movies’ real strength. Sometimes a comedy will have funny lines but not much of a setup. It’s just funny line after funny line. Some movies have funny premises but not much in terms of actual jokes to help those premises. A good comedy has both and 21 Jump Street does.

It also helps that everyone in the cast (besides maybe Ice Cube) was up to the task of telling the jokes. I mean specifically Channing Tatum. Like I said earlier I don’t think very much of him as an actor, but this movie showed that he definitely has some comedic chops. Watching him go blow for blow with all the comedic talent in this movie was very impressive. He even had some hilarious physical bits, like when he was messing with Schmidt while he talks on the phone to Molly. He brought it better then I even thought he had in him.

So this is where I should summarize, but I feel like I already have. 21 Jump Street was really funny and if you enjoy funny things you should watch it. If you don’t enjoy funny things I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you should go watch something serious again. This was a really lazy review.

Our Idiot Brother

Grade: C+

Every movie has some sort of message it wants to convey. There has to be a point, otherwise where does the conflict come from? Some movies will try to subvert this and intentionally be about nothing, but those are the exception that proves the rule more than anything. It’s intentionally contradictory as a statement about what the norm is. The norm though is for there to be a message. Some movies are subtle about their message. Some are vague. Some like to leave it up to interpretation. And some just want to make it a bold statement. Jesse Peretz’s Our Idiot Brother is the latter.

A lot of times that is a bad thing. Being too obvious makes the rest of the movie kind of pointless. If you are just going to tell me the message then why not just save me the hour and a half and tell it to me right now. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure the message is received, and with a good message you should want to make sure it is known, but there are better ways to do it then just tell us. With all that being said I liked Our Idiot Brother, just for different reasons.

If all you want out this movie is the message then here it is: we shouldn’t take things for granted. A commonly acknowledged message but something that a lot of us (no pun intended) tend to take for granted. Life in general is kind of amazing so really every little thing really is kind of a big deal, and a lot of us (myself included) often overlook that. The way the movie chooses to tell this to you is through Paul Rudd’s character Ned. Ned is, as the title suggests, the family idiot. He never seems to figure things out and is either too naïve for his own good (as is shown by him not realizing that two people alone in a room naked are probably having sex) or too seemingly stupid to ever be able to get ahead in life (as we see in the first scene where he gets tricked into selling drugs to a police officer that is still in uniform).

The main story of the movie revolves around his interactions with his sisters Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), and Liz (Emily Mortimer) as he tries to put his life, relatively, back together after getting out of prison for the aforementioned dealings with a police officer. His girlfriend Janet (Kathryn Hahn) has kicked him out of their farm and taken his dog Willie Nelson, all the while shacking up with a new hippy guy named Billy (TJ Miller). Ned now with no home, no job, and no dog is forced to live with his mom and try to do odds and ends jobs to make enough money to pay a rent. Soon he finds that living with his mother just won’t work so he tries living with each of his sisters. Of course happy go lucky Ned is turns out to be too much of a burden for each sister as they try to lead their own busy lives.

The rest of the movie is just series of events that show Ned simultaneously being a burden while also using his naïve and simple logic to teach each sibling a lesson. At first they think he is the cause of all their problems, and then all of a sudden they realize they caused all their problems and all he wanted to do was help. It all culminates in them showing their appreciation by trying to steal back his dog. This is when the movies message is spoon fed to you by the following exchange:

Janet: “why do you even want this dog back?”

Miranda “Because he loves that dog more than anything in the world. None of us love anything more than Ned loves that dog.”

They then all have the realization of how wrong they have been and how they need to change their ways.

At this point you may think I’m giving away too much of the plot, and I probably have, but I did it because what makes this movie enjoyable is not the story but rather the performances. Like I said this story has been told before, but what makes this time different is that this cast is just so much fun to watch.

Paul Rudd is one of the most likeable people in Hollywood. Now team him up with a golden retriever, like they did in this film, and you can’t help but crack a smile. Elizabeth Banks plays uptight better than just about anyone so of course she was great as the uptight fashion magazine ladder climber Miranda. Zooey Deschanel is always adorable as the bubbly indie girl. But this movie wasn’t just happy with that so they teamed her up with the equally as adorable Rashida Jones as a lesbian couple that, while not a hot as you would think, is still crazy cute. Sure it’s all pandering, but it’s super adorable pandering at its finest.

And that’s not even the best part of the cast. The real scene stealers lie in the secondary characters. Adam Scott (who is unquestionably one of my favorite actors working right now) is dead on as the more than just a neighbor, science fiction writer that lives below Miranda. It’s the type of nuanced performance Scott has been churning out lately, and is extremely rare in light hearted comedies like this. Emily Mortimer brings it too as the married sister who is trying her hardest to make her family work even though her husband is being beyond ridiculous with his standards. She’s almost a little too over the top as this seemed like the type of performance that seems like she is trying her hardest to do well so she can be welcomed into the cool kids club for other movies, but it definitely works. Steve Coogan, a guy who seems really likeable, plays the jerk husband to almost perfection. Seriously you will hate him by the time the movie is over.

Easily the funniest performances though go to the hippy couple of Janet and Billy played by the seriously underrated Kathryn Hahn and TJ Miller. You may recognize Hahn from various things and she is always one of the best parts of the movies she is in, and this movie is no different. She is one delightfully mean and controlling hippy. You might also recognize Miller from various other things too, but this might be his best role as the equally as happy go lucky as Ned, Billy. He’s just so nice and dumb that even though he is technically helping Janet ruin the life Ned had before prison, you still can’t help but love him.

All this kind of sums up the movie perfectly: for all its faults you still can’t help but enjoy it. The script is weak and at sometimes flat out annoying (the dog’s name is Willie Nelson and you will remember that as it’s said about a hundred times). Also the story is nothing new. But through its extremely enjoyable cast and performances it will win you over. This has the feeling of a movie that was a ton of fun to shoot and you can sense it all throughout. It was not the most ambitious movie but it is one of the most likeable movies I have seen in a while.

Submarine

Grade: C+

I have been thinking a lot lately about talent. Like the fact that we live in a world where often times it’s not how talented you are but rather how talented people think you are. Think about it like resumes and cover letters for jobs. You could have been a terrible employee at an impressive job and you would still get a lot of interviews based off that job on your resume. I think this is especially prevalent in the creative fields. It’s been well documented that people tend to fall up, regardless of how talented they actually are. Most of the time I spend thinking about this is about the people who had the talent yet never became anything with it. Either this be through lack of exposure, never trying, or personal anxiety holding them back. It’s entirely possible that the top 10% of extremely talented people in any given field either never use their talent or create something great that is never seen. Think about how many great creations we have, and then think about how many more potentially even greater creations we have never seen.

Sure some people believe that no matter what talent has a way of rising to the top and getting noticed, but I tend to believe that that is extremely naïve thinking. This is because the ability to be great at something usually comes at a cost of something else, and more often than not that something else is marketability. Honestly, ask yourself how many people do you know that are without question talented or brilliant at a particular thing, and how long did it take you to realize this? Talent is extremely difficult to convince someone of in a thirty minute interview and almost impossible on one or two pieces of paper. Brilliant people get overlooked everyday by someone who is just better at looking brilliant than they are. Studies have even shown this. It has been reported that often the more competent you are at something the less confident you are about it because you know so much and the more knowledge you have on something the less simplistic it is to define of give a definitive stance on it. In the inverse people who are not competent (or at least not to a great degree) are often more confident about that thing because they are often unaware of their incompetence and just assume they have a full understanding on things. Talent becomes hurt by its talent, and someone who is less talented but either better at establishing connections, better at selling themselves (these are often very much one in the same), or simply look better on paper unjustly takes their spot. These musings don’t really have much to do with Richard Ayoade’s Submarine, but it does have something to do with its director.

Ayoade is one of those people who I went from never hearing anything about to instantly popping up everywhere I look. First, I was looking for a new show to watch on Netflix when I stumbled onto The IT Crowd (a British show about some nerds who work in the IT department for a company, and if you’re wondering I still don’t really know how I feel about it) where Ayoade plays the memorable (which I can’t decide if in a good or bad way) Moss. A few days later I’m watching a trailer for the new Ben Stiller movie Neighborhood Watch and there pops up Ayoade again. Then as I’m skimming through the comments I see someone mention the movie Submarine while talking about Ayoade popping up in the trailer. Submarine just happened to be the next movie in my Netflix queue and it was literally on its way through the mail when I read that. I had known next to nothing about the movie and definitely didn’t know Ayoade directed it. I got it because a few websites I read said that they enjoyed it and I thought I should give it a shot. I then look up on IMDB before writing this review and learn that he directed one of the more interesting episodes of Community (the My Dinner with Andre one). Overnight he had become everywhere I looked, and this made me skeptical. It’s easy to assume that because someone is getting popular it’s because they are talented and everyone wants them, but then I started to think again about talent and how, especially in movies, people can fall up. Then I began to ask myself “did I enjoy what he has done?” and “do his future projects look promising?” But really what I was asking myself was “is he what you would call talent?”

When I think of talent I think of someone with a distinct style. Quentin Taratino has a distinct style about him, as do the Cohen brothers, and other great directors. In film they call them Auteurs, and so I guess the question then becomes: is Ayoade and auteur? For that I have a definitive answer and it is no, which was my problem with Submarine.

Story wise Submarine is nothing new. A young, precocious outsider named Oliver falls for a popular girl named Jordana. Through a series of quirky events they begin dating and much of the story follows their relationship. Meanwhile, Oliver begins to suspect his mom is going to leave his father for the over the top, oddball neighbor Graham. So on top of having to deal with his own relationship Oliver tries to take matters into his own hands with his parents relationship as well (because he is precocious and intelligent beyond his years and in the movie world this is what kids like him do). None of that is too groundbreaking of storyline but I will say that it is well written, and the characters never feel like the caricature’s they seem like they would naturally be. Well besides Graham, but I believe that was intentional.

The problem is this has all been done before by Wes Anderson. In fact if I was going to summarize this movie in one sentence I would say “Submarine is like a Wes Anderson film without Bill Murray getting his awesomeness all over things.” Oliver is just a British Max Fischer. The parents are just about any parents from any Wes Anderson movie, distant and somewhat bored/defeated with/by their life. Even when Oliver is trying to fix his parents relationship it feels like I’m watching Rushmore again. Only instead of a fondness for red and yellow it’s red and blue.

The part that feels the most derivative though is the direction. Something that has always bothered me about Anderson’s movies is his love of the unnecessary whimsy and quirk. I’m not against either of those things but when done for no reason it becomes a bit much. It can’t just be fish; it has to be a fish made out of felt or claymation. Ayoade feels the need to do this too. Rather than just soaking in the moment of Oliver feeling overwhelmed by all that is going on in his life, he turns Oliver’s room into the ocean as him and his bed begin to sink. He can’t just hastily ride his bike back to his house to tell his father something, the sky has to transform into a kaleidoscope effect. It’s all cute imagery but completely unnecessary.

But what is even more frustrating about this movie is that there is a really touching and honest story about youthful romanticism and middle aged complacency that is being overshadowed by all the quirkiness. Even though Graham is a very obvious caricature, there are real people that are every bit as much of a caricature that impressionable people like Oliver’s mom do fall for and then contemplate and sometimes do leave their steady, unexciting significant others for. Oliver and Jordana get together over the quirkiest of quirky ways and are a hyper-quirky couple when together, but their relationship goes to some very real and very difficult places for a young couple.

Because of all this I knew that Submarine was going to be a movie I needed a day or two to sit and think about. My kneejerk reaction, like any movie that had trouble walking the line between stylish and intelligent, and over-stylish and cutesy, was that I didn’t like it. But then the more I think about it, the more I find myself enjoying the story and the characters. This is why it got me thinking about talent as talent is often misunderstood at first, then appreciated later as people have time to let it soak in. Ultimately I’m left with a feeling that while I appreciate Submarine, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. So going off this I don’t think Ayoade is someone I would label a surefire talent, but his movie certainly got me thinking about it and that’s a good start.

John Carter

Grade: C-

Much like people, I try to give every movie a fair shot. I may jump to conclusions about a movie or a person, because it’s human nature, but once I’m engaged with them (or watching the movie) I try to let them make their own impression. It’s disappointing then when a movie (or a person) was exactly what you expected going in. It’s even disappointing if you went into the movie (or conversation) expecting to like it (or someone) for specific reasons and you do for exactly those reasons. It’s just more fun when there is something there you didn’t expect. It’s what makes the beautiful chaos that is existence worth doing. Even if we expect to wake up one day and have an amazing day, we could still have an amazing day for completely unplanned reasons, making the day even more amazing. That’s exactly what bummed me out about Andrew Stanton’s John Carter. It’s exactly what you think it is, only perhaps more boring. Sense that is that case I’m not really going to write this review seriously the rest of the way. One paragraph of introspection is more than enough for this movie.

I know I said last time I don’t like to spend a lot of time talking about the plot of a movie, but in this case I am going to. Otherwise this review would just be me lamenting it’s ineptness, and unless you have seen the movie, it wouldn’t make any sense.

It all starts out with the typical framing story where a kid finds out he received everything from his mysterious and adventurous uncle (John Carter). His uncle requests that he read his secret diary and Boom Story begins! It starts out with him going into an old trading station (this movie is set in the late 1800’s) where Carter is instantly laughed at by the locals (the head one played by Bob Pinciotti, in case you were wondering what he is up to) who says “we’ve already got all your money what more do you want?” and also joke about his quest to find a cave full of money and “evil spiders” (foreshadowing!). But of course John Carter is a tough rebel without a cause so he ends getting into a bit of a scuffle and before you know it he has his gun pointed at Bob. He hands him a small piece of gold to pay off his debts (by the way the gold totally has crazy marking on it, foreshadowing!!) and while he still has Bob at gunpoint he says, in complete earnestness, “Beans. The first. Item. On the list. Is. Beans.”

Next thing you know Walter White shows up in his best Cornel Mustard impersonation and he drags Carter away to do try and make him rejoin the army or something. They then do that thing in movies where they try to appeal to everyone so he hilariously escapes a few times with more bruises on his face after every time (cause nothing says family fun like using violence for laughs) and then on like the forth try he actually does escape. They chase him and then run into some Indians and then next thing you know Carter saves Walter White prompting him to say “I thought you didn’t care?” (Spoiler alert: he does care). They are chased until they hit this mysterious cave with crazy markings and the Indians go all “yeah I’m not messing with that stuff” (because ethnic people are always so much wiser about the land than us inconsiderate white people, but we show them by being more adventurous!) Of course Carter goes venturing into the cave to find gold and evil spiders. Only instead he finds some weird markings and a crazy white dude pops out and Carter shoots him. The dude had some amulet which Carter is all over, and that guy is also speaking some gibberish which Carter begins to recite and then zing bang! He’s on Mars.

I may have forgotten to mention that all while this is happening they are intercutting with some stuff about a war going on, on Mars. Honestly though it’s not really important as I assume you know where this is going, but basically there is a bad guy and he is just a puppet for another one of those crazy white dudes (played by Mark Strong who is one of many “paycheck” actors in this movie) who tells him to do bad stuff. Mark Strong also gave the bad guy this blue thing that can like do everything basically. Also the bad guy wants to marry the princess of the colony he is trying to take over, because she is really hot, and also Mark Strong says its part of some plan of him and other crazy white dudes in crazy robes made up.

Meanwhile on some other part of Mars, John Carter is on Mars and for some reason has no trouble breathing. Then he realizes he can jump really high. Then Willem Dafoe as a giant four armed alien starts talking to him but of course they don’t speak the same language so hilarity ensues and he calls Carter “Virginia” because Carter was trying to explain he’s from Virginia and Virginia is all Willem Dafoe hears in the exchange. That was actually sort of a funny little thing they did, so then naturally they beat the joke to the ground and he calls him Virginia like twenty more times. Willem Dafoe then takes Carter back with him to his home where all the other four armed aliens are. Also these aliens have face tusks and they slam them together when talking aggressively, which when this happened all I could think was “maaakkkeee ooouttttt!” but they never did.

They hang out for a bit and we find out that Carter can jump really high and kill aliens with a single punch because his bone mass is denser from being on Earth his whole life. Also he can now understand them because he drank some special elixir that makes him speak Martian, but yet still no explanation of how he can breathe on Mars. Then a big fight happens in the sky and the aliens are like “we want no part in this, let the human-ish (they are humans but the aliens refer to them as red people so they aren’t technically humans cause they are from Mars but they are just white people with tattoos and some dirt) people kill each other.” But then John Carter is all “I mean I don’t care and all but that totally hot chick looks like she is in trouble” so he jumps into the sky (literally) and saves her. But guess what? This movie isn’t sexist because she ends up kicking more ass in the fight than him! Thank you John Carter for getting rid of all gender role clichés. I have to imagine women have never been more empowered! Except lol jk cause this movie is still totally about him saving and then banging her.

So now it’s him and her with all the aliens. Then soon after they are forced to leave the place because Carter is a rebel without a cause, and Willem Dafoe’s daughter is a screw up. The next half hour to an hour (or maybe it just felt that long) is mainly just them wandering through the desert. It’s sooooo boring. Then they hit a river and find out about some stuff that’s kind of important, and then when they get out of the chamber of things that are kind of important they have to run because Mark Strong is telling some other group of aliens what to do, and he says they should attack Carter. Then Carter, who totally cares now cause it turns out he had a wife on Earth but then she died because of him which makes him feel really bad about kissing the hot Martian chick because now she might die because of him too, basically kills like half of this army of giant aliens in a effort to save the hot Martian chick who he met just a couple days ago.

What is important about this scene is that A. Mark Strong is a real dick in this movie as he just led a bunch of aliens to slaughter and B. John Carter gets knocked out leading to easily the best moment in this movie. Carter wakes up in a room with him and like twenty guards there to keep watch on him. He says “Is this Helium?” (This is where the princess is from and where they were headed to before he got knocked out) and one of the guards says “Huh, no!” HAHAAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!! Seriously that is one snarky guard! I thought guards were supposed to stay silent? I guess not this one! He plays by his own rulezz! (That’s right he’s such a rebel he spells it with two z’s)

Okay so maybe I was the only one in the theater who found this hilarious, and yeah this was just some dumb throwaway line, but this is seriously without question the best moment in the movie. It’s all very much downhill from here. You will find yourself, like I did, nostalgic for that moment the whole rest of the way. So with that being said I’m going to stop the review here because there really is no point in going on. Also, I’m tired of writing this and I’m over 1,500 words about a movie I didn’t even like so it ends here. There are some other things that happen but nothing you didn’t see coming. The ships were cool looking, Taylor Kitsch despite being perfect as Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights (Texas forever!) probably isn’t talented enough to be a lasting leading man, and we find out that Mark Strong and all the other crazy white dudes in robes are immortal beings who control the galaxy. This of course makes absolutely no sense as John Carter clearly killed one of them in the beginning of the movie, but then again not much else of this movie made any sense or was any good so who cares? (Wow this review really spiraled out of control).

The Guard

Grade: B

I like to make comparisons. We all do. It’s an easy way to communicate something to someone else without having to go into too much detail about it. It’s especially prevalent in things like movies and sports where, unless someone reinvents the wheel, it’s easy to compare one to another thanks to an all encompassing and well documented history. The problem is that those comparisons are often lazy and based off a quick assessment. Later that assessment is reevaluated by someone who has done more research and they are often debunked, but sometimes it turns out those assessments were right all along. John Michael McDonagh’s The Guard is one of those movies.

Your immediate connection goes to McDonagh’s brother Martin McDonagh’s ridiculously funny In Bruges. Both are unorthodox comedies about two people forced to be together due to extreme circumstances. There is a relative straight man to counter the manic being caused by the other man. They both star a respectable Hollywood actor (Don Cheadle in The Guard and Colin Farrell in one of my all time favorite performances in In Bruges) and the savagely underappreciated Brendan Gleeson. There is also a lot of cursing, and the bad guy is played by a b-list actor (Ralph Fiennes in Bruges and the also underappreciated Mark Strong) in both.

Okay so about the story (if you have noticed I don’t talk much about the story, that’s because if you want to know the story of a movie go to its website or watch it’s trailer or look it up on IMDB. I like to go into reviewing assuming you have already heard about the movie, it’s just easier). The movie revolves around a murder which leads to information about an international drug smuggling ring in a small town in Ireland. An FBI agent (Cheadle) is sent to investigate and the only man who seems to be able to help, though not exactly forthcomingly, is an “unorthodox” cop played by Gleeson.

This pairing is part of what makes this movie fall short of its comparison to In Bruges. Both Cheadle and Gleeson are great. It’s a whole lot of fun watching Gleeson playfully order and drink milkshake while discussing serious affairs with a prostitute and the chief of police. As well as watch Cheadle try to contain his anger while Gleeson gives him a rough time while he tries to inform the squad of the bad dealings going on, but it’s no Gleeson and Farrell, though what is? The funny thing is that throughout this whole movie I just kept thinking about how much I enjoyed watching Gleeson play the straight man. To me, Gleeson is no Farrell and Cheadle is no Gleeson. I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence. Both are some of the most accomplished actors working right now, but they just fell short of the brilliance from their counterparts. In Gleeson’s case I just enjoy him playing the straight man more, which is once again not to slight just how enjoyable he was as the wild card, but he is the best in the business at the straight man. Cheadle on the other hand has played a great straight man for years now, but he falls shorts of how brilliant Gleeson is when perfectly cast.

My other problem with this film was how it constantly felt the need to remind you of who was who. As if it wasn’t obvious enough that Gleeson was an oddball they threw in lines like “You sure are unconventional” and “you know, I can't tell if you're really motherfuckin' dumb, or really motherfuckin' smart.” We get it he’s an enigma; you don’t have to keep telling us.

As often is the case when talking about good but not great movies I am focusing too much on what could have made it great rather than what it did do right. So just as a reminder it was still a very good movie, and here’s why:

A strength of this movie is its interactions. This must have something to do with the McDonagh’s upbringing because both know how to write some sharp exchanges. The casual interactions between Cheadle and Gleeson are equal parts small town simplicity meets intellectual curiosity. That’s part of where Gleeson’s enigma status stems from. He’s clearly well read and enjoys some of the finer things in life, yet he still indulges in afternoons with call girls and shouts racist things at Cheadle for nothing more than shits and giggles.

Even the criminals, who are often the least appropriately fleshed out characters in movies, take part in enjoyable “three stooges” type exchanges. For instance Mark Strong plays the leader of the three criminals who is from Britain and the only real hardened criminal of the group. So naturally the two other criminals attribute his seriousness to him being a typical Brit. Sorry that’s a poor explanation of their relationship but you’ll know what I mean when you see it.

This movie also delves into a great exploration of the fish out of water theory as well as just how different life is in one place relative to another. For example, at one point Cheadle’s character tries to go door to door to get information on the death of a man, but of course the locals of a small Irish town have no interest in helping an American from the big city, even if they did speak the same language. He then comes to Gleeson looking for help only to get laughed at with a sense of “well of course they don’t speak English there.” It’s a great example of how in one place something is common knowledge whereas someone from another area has no idea of it. There is also some critical commentary on the corruption of the Irish police system in small towns. Though I don’t want to talk too much about it in fear that maybe this is just something the movie does to make the story easier to tell rather than any commentary. Again, we are often oblivious to what is common knowledge to others from other areas.

I guess if I were to summarize this movie I would use this lazy comparison: If you loved In Bruges you will love The Guard just to a slightly less degree. I hate myself.