In Bruges is the film this has been associated with, it stars Brendan Gleason and is directed by the brother of the guy who did In Bruges. Oh, and I also had to strain to hear the dialogue a bit when I saw it, the only difference being that I didn't feel it was worth the effort in this case.
It's broadly drawn, and just not funny enough. No real wit, most of the humour comes from the Irish cop's inappropriate racist or unPC remarks, which of course could be funny given the right context, but here... We see Gleason's cop finger a dead man's crotch while his nerdy green companion looks on with distaste. Well, is that funny? I know, I sound like Margot Ledbetter in The Good Life, wrinkling her nose. "Tell me why it's funny, please!" Later our man implies to the new black FBI man in town that surely all drug dealers are black. Could be funny, I suppose, but not here. And when one dim bulb asks the FBI man whether to 'liquidate' someone meant kill them by turning them into liquid, well, it's like the film is implying all the Irish are basically thick, though again, were the joke to be stellar I could forgive all.
There's a bit of heart when he visits his ailing mother in a hospice, but it's not that original to have her wonder what it's like to take cocaine, ooh who'd have thought it! It's as if we're not meant to know whether our man is clever or dumb, but I found Gleason just not charismatic enough for this role - Robbie Coltrane would have been fine, were he Irish not Scottish.
Mark Strong was the only actor who really acquitted himself here I felt.
It's broadly drawn, and just not funny enough. No real wit, most of the humour comes from the Irish cop's inappropriate racist or unPC remarks, which of course could be funny given the right context, but here... We see Gleason's cop finger a dead man's crotch while his nerdy green companion looks on with distaste. Well, is that funny? I know, I sound like Margot Ledbetter in The Good Life, wrinkling her nose. "Tell me why it's funny, please!" Later our man implies to the new black FBI man in town that surely all drug dealers are black. Could be funny, I suppose, but not here. And when one dim bulb asks the FBI man whether to 'liquidate' someone meant kill them by turning them into liquid, well, it's like the film is implying all the Irish are basically thick, though again, were the joke to be stellar I could forgive all.
There's a bit of heart when he visits his ailing mother in a hospice, but it's not that original to have her wonder what it's like to take cocaine, ooh who'd have thought it! It's as if we're not meant to know whether our man is clever or dumb, but I found Gleason just not charismatic enough for this role - Robbie Coltrane would have been fine, were he Irish not Scottish.
Mark Strong was the only actor who really acquitted himself here I felt.