When our culture is finally swallowed by snark, all movies will resemble this benumbing buddy-cop facsimile, a major misfire from The Guard’s John Michael McDonagh. Rather than a plot, McDonagh here offers a monotonous succession of low blows, pitting New Mexico detectives Michael Peña and Alexander Skarsgård against various minority punchbags and prompting them to gurgle insensitively – a careworn post-Gervaisian tactic that might only be excusable if these jabs were funny. That title’s fair warning at least, but it’s hard to engage in any rewarding way with a film in which not a single word is meant or felt – unless McDonagh really is the worst kind of reactionary.
