The Guard (John Michael McDonagh, 2011)

An affable comedy-come-thriller casts Brendan Gleeson in his most effective niche (see In Bruges) as a gruff Irish policeman with a stackload to bad habits from whoring to drink and drugs, a sort of Bad Lieutenant scenario but far lighter and not in fact judgmental at all towards its hero's foibles. The story itself is a fairly bogstandard buddy movie model, with Don Cheadle's FBI agent turning up in search of some drug smugglers, but the execution is cutely witty and Gleeson gives as good value for money as ever.

6/10