I REALLY enjoyed this flick. While I've seen Cheadle in better roles, he's aptly authentic and provides a great fish-out-of-water where the cliché is played smartly and without insulting intelligence. Gleeson is amazing - the salty rural garda who is as smart as any of the big city folk, but chooses to live with simplicity and directness.
It's the nuances and intelligence present in this film that make it so enjoyable. The characters are all superbly written with tons of personal detail that make them each really come alive, from the small little pipsqueek who's dangerously culturally aware, to the mother at the end of her life who demands integrity and vitality in her last days, to the narco-traffickers who ponder the worth of their lives...every damn character in this movie is brilliantly fleshed and realized.
I didn't laugh a lot, but this is one of those movies they call a "comedy" (Punch Drunk Love and Bowling for Columbine were also labelled as comedy) because they don't know what else to call it.
I call it a brilliant f--king film. A wonderfully pleasant surprise.
It's the nuances and intelligence present in this film that make it so enjoyable. The characters are all superbly written with tons of personal detail that make them each really come alive, from the small little pipsqueek who's dangerously culturally aware, to the mother at the end of her life who demands integrity and vitality in her last days, to the narco-traffickers who ponder the worth of their lives...every damn character in this movie is brilliantly fleshed and realized.
I didn't laugh a lot, but this is one of those movies they call a "comedy" (Punch Drunk Love and Bowling for Columbine were also labelled as comedy) because they don't know what else to call it.
I call it a brilliant f--king film. A wonderfully pleasant surprise.