The first offering of the new year from the Jasper Film Club will be The Guard, a critically acclaimed cop comedy set in Ireland.

Billed as a “fish-out-of-water tale of murder, blackmail, drug trafficking and rural police corruption,” the 2011 movie has been well received at film festivals around the world and has earned an exceptional 95-per-cent rating on the aggregate review site rottentomatoes.com.

Brendan Gleeson stars as an eccentric and inadvertently racist small-town police officer who gets wrapped up in an international drug-trafficking investigation and paired with a humourless African-American FBI agent, played by Don Cheadle.

“The film’s more interested in spending quality time with this unlikely pair than solving crimes,” wrote movie critic Matt Glasby. “Thanks to (writer/director John Michael) McDonagh’s sparkling script and some charming central performances, you will be too.”

The Sony Pictures Classic product saw limited release beginning in July last year and has grossed just over $5 million at the U.S. box office, but it has received wide praise. Gleeson was nominated for a Golden Globe as best actor in a musical or comedy for his performance, described as “one of the best of 2011” by film critic Matthew Toomey of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Jasper Film Club will present The Guard at the Chaba Theatre on Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m.