Source:Reprisal Films, Element Pictures

October 29, 2009

Brendan Gleeson ("Harry Potter" series) stars as an unorthodox Irish policeman who joins forces with a straitlaced FBI agent, played by Don Cheadle (upcoming Iron Man 2), to take on an international drug-smuggling gang in John Michael McDonagh's The Guard, which has just started principal photography in the West of Ireland.

Sergeant Gerry Boyle is a small-town 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 FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door.

However, despite the fact that Boyle seems more interested in mocking and undermining Everett than in actively working to solve the case, he finds that circumstances keep pulling him back into the thick of it. First his tiresomely enthusiastic new partner McBride disappears, then his favourite hooker attempts to blackmail him into turning a blind eye, and finally the drug-traffickers themselves try to buy him off as they have every other member of the local police force.

These events unwittingly offend Boyle's murky moral code. He realizes that he needs to take matters into his own hands, and the only person he can trust is Everett. And so the scene is set for an explosive finale.

Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh (Ned Kelly), the film also stars Mark Strong (upcoming Sherlock Holmes), Liam Cunningham, Fionnuala Flanagan, David Wilmot, Rory Keenan, Pat Shortt and newcomer Katarina Cas.

The Guard is produced by Reprisal's Chris Clark and Flora Fernandez Marengo and Element's Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe and executive-produced by Martin McDonagh, Don Cheadle, Lenore Zerman, Tim Smith, Paul Brett, Ralph Kamp and David Nash. Key crew include DoP Larry Smith, production designer John-Paul Kelly, costume designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh and editor Chris Gill.