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The Oscar Nominations were announced on Monday, among them Alexander Payne’s Golden Globe-winner The Descendants. I’ll be reviewing The Descendants on air, followed by a discussion of the Academy Award nominees on the BBC Movie Café alongside Janice Forsyth and – as is now our regular custom – Mr Paul Gallagher.

You can listen live from 1.15pm on BBC Radio Scotland or online. If you miss it, it’ll be free to stream later in the day.

BBC Movie Café is now also available to download as a podcast, so no excuses!

John Michael McDonagh – forever cursed to be billed as brother to In Bruges’ writer-director Michael – tries his hand at directing in this scalding debut. Starring Brendan Gleeson as foul-mouthed, small-town Garda Sergeant Gerry Boyle, Irish humour mixes with dark overtones create this wise-cracking black comedy. Don Cheadle co-stars as uptight FBI agent Wendell Everett sent to get to the bottom of a high profile drug trafficking scheme off the coast of Galway. A trio of mis-matched gangsters, including Londoner Mark Strong, run rings around the Garda in a cat-and-mouse game along winding country roads and a perishing coast.

Like Gleeson, it’s a little flabby around the middle but its rough-and-ready approach creates a medley of ridiculousness that somehow hits the right notes. Despite some over-stretching, its dialogue pays off. High-brow references and small-town idiosyncrasies clash in rib-tickling fashion, leaving us to ponder whether The Guard’s subjects are really mother-effing dumb, or really mother-effing smart.

The Guard is released on DVD in the UK on Monday 16 January.


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