An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is partnered with an uptight F.B.I. agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.
Sergeant Gerry Boyle is a small-town Irish cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humor, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett to his door.—Element Pictures
Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brandon Gleeson) is an officer of the Garda Siochana (also called the police) in Connemara in the west of Ireland. He is crass and confrontational, regularly partaking in drugs and alcohol even while on duty. He is also shown to have a softer side, showing concern for his ailing mother, Eileen (Fionnula Flanagan). Eileen has 6-8 weeks to live and now lives at a nursing home where she can get proper care.
Boyle and his partner, Aidan McBride (Rory Keenan) (its McBride's first day on the job), investigate a murder in their jurisdiction, with evidence pointing to an occult serial killer. The victim has no identification records, and McBride sends his fingerprints for analysis.Now money is missing from the house, and a number 5 1/2 is written on the wall with blood. McBride reckons that the number represents the number of victims of the killer. Half means that one of the victims was not killed but maimed in a serious way.Boyle get an anonymous phone call, made by Sheehy, who says that the murder with the occult overtones was done by a man named Billy Devaney. Billy says that at the time of the murder, he was in a bar, having a fight with one of his friends over payment of money over a bet. Billy has more than 20 witnesses for the same.
Shortly after, Boyle attends a briefing by Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), a special agent of the FBI, sent to liaise with the Garda in hunting down four Irish drug traffickers, led by Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (Liam Cunningham), who is believed to be awaiting a delivery of cocaine worth $ 500 MM coming into Connemara by boat.Everett says that the ship is named Anabelle Lee and the FBI lost track of it when it left the Dominican Republic 3 weeks ago.
Boyle recognizes one of the men in Everett's presentation as the victim of the murder he and McBride had been investigating. Everett says that the man's name is James McCormick and he was probably looking for drop points for the drugs along the Irish coast.Everett is an African American man, & Boyle insults him by suggesting publicly that he thought that only African American men & Mexicans are drug dealers.
Around the same period, McBride pulls over a car with Sheehy and his lieutenants Clive Cornell (Mark Strong) and Liam O'Leary (David Wilmot) and is shot dead. McBride doesn't realize it until it is too late for him. Lian and Sheehy put McBride's body in the trunk of their car to dump it in the sea, where it is never recovered. McBride's wife, Gabriela (Katarina Cas), reports McBride's disappearance to Boyle (she says that McBride called her at 8 PM saying that he was heading home, but never got there), who promises to look into it.Everett realizes that Boyle is a rude and straight-talking Irish. Boyle admits going to Disney World all by himself. He refuses to see the photos of Everett's baby, as he says that all babies look the same. Boyle assumes that Everett came from the "projects" but Everett says that we went to Prep school, and then Yale, where he was a Rhodes scholar.
The strait-laced Everett and the unorthodox Boyle are teamed up to track down Sheehy and his men. While Everett makes the rounds (trying to find out more about James McCormick), running into language issues and uncooperative residents, Boyle (who says that it is his day off) solicits a pair of prostitutes (Aoife O'Carroll (Dominique McElligott) and Sinead Mulligan (Sarah Greene)) at a hotel in town.On his way back from the hotel, Boyle spots McBride's Garda car at a "suicide hot-spot" along the coast but does not believe that McBride killed himself. Gabriela reveals that McBride is gay.
Meeting Everett at the local bar, Boyle glances up at a surveillance camera and remembers that the original suspect in the murder case (Billy Devaney) claimed to be frequenting the same establishment at the time of the killing. Boyle believes that whoever made the crank call to him, saw Billy at the bar, having a fight with his friend, and then called the police, to embroil Billy as a suspect.Looking over the footage from the time of the murder, they see that the suspect's alibi checked out - and Everett also spots Sheehy and Cornell at the bar at the same time.
Meanwhile, Cornell delivers a payoff to the Garda inspectors to keep them off the case, but Sheehy believes that Boyle will not be so easily swayed, even after he meets with Boyle and offers him a bribe. Sheehy also uses the pictures of Boyle with the prostitutes to black mail Boyle into accepting his bribe, with consequences of releasing the pictures if Boyle were to decline.
Tipped off by a young boy named Eugene (Mícheál Og Lane), Boyle discovers a cache of weapons hidden in the marshes by the IRA. After having her last wish to hear a live pub band fulfilled, Boyle's mother dies; while meeting at the bar again, Everett remarks that Garda sources indicate that Sheehy's shipment will be coming into County Cork, and that he is leaving to investigate.
Returning home, Boyle is confronted in his living room by O'Leary, sent by Sheehy to kill Boyle to keep him from interfering with the shipment. Boyle pulls a gun and kills O'Leary, then calls Everett to tell him that the Cork lead was a decoy. Boyle drives to the local dock where Sheehy's boat is berthed, and Sheehy's men are unloading the cocaine. Everett arrives and gives Boyle covering fire as he moves to arrest Sheehy and Cornell.
Boyle - taking a glancing hit to the arm - kills Cornell before leaping onto the boat to take down Sheehy before he can escape. Everett hits several explosive barrels on the deck, setting the boat on fire. Boyle shoots Sheehy and leaves him for dead in the main cabin as the boat explodes.
As day breaks, Everett looks out on the water where the boat sank, believing Boyle to be dead. Eugene mentions that Boyle was a good swimmer; having claimed to have placed fourth at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, a claim that Everett incredulously dismissed. A young photographer (Laurence Kinlan), remarks that it was easy enough to look up. Everett remembers Boyle's remark that Sheehy's backers would not forget Boyle's actions and that Boyle would have to disappear were he to continue living, and smiles.
