Comedy of ‘The Guard’ may disarm you

Just got out of “The Guard,” an amusing little Irish import that gives new meaning to the term self-referential. A comedy about a seemingly comic, but maybe heroic, constable in a small Irish village, played well by Brendan Gleeson, “The Guard” owes a debt to Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino in its use stereotypes and blending of the stupid and the academic — which is what happens when thugs begin talking about their favorite philosophers or arguing whether “misinfomation” of “disinformation” better describes what they mean.

Gleeson’s constable is likeable, despite his tendency to throw out comments that seem as stupid as they are racist and demeaning. But as the joke is almost always on the guardsman himself, or on the very attitudes they lampoon, they work.

So if you’re in the mood for a film that, in the end, is a comment about the very kind of movie that it pretends to be, go see “The Guard.” And then go and eat something at Pig Out! I did and I’m already almost over my indigestion.

Below: The trailer for “The Guard.”