With his third major feature, Irish-born and English-raised writer-director John Michael McDonagh has very big shoes to fill – his own. Following the extraordinary success of darkly comic dramas The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014), both films starring Brendan Gleeson, and both set in Ireland, McDonagh crosses the globe for War on Everyone

War on Everyone is an action comedy that features McDonagh’s rich characterisation and jet black humour. It tracks the misadventures of two corrupt cops in New Mexico – Terry Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård) and Bob Bolano (Michael Peña).

They set out to blackmail and frame every criminal unfortunate enough to cross their path. Things take a sinister turn, however, when they try to intimidate someone who is more dangerous than they are. Or is he?

McDonagh began talking about the script for his long-germinating War on Everyone after the release of The Guard, which grossed more than €20 million worldwide and before the release of Calvary, which won nine awards and garnered another 22 nominations on the film festival circuit and from critics groups.

By July 2014, McDonagh was discussing War on Everyone with the press, describing it as “The French Connection but with more jokes” and revealing that Michael Peña had signed on in one of the two lead roles.

If other people love them, then hopefully the audience will too

“I was only being partly facetious,” explains McDonagh about his initial description of the project. “War on Everyone is a buddy-buddy black comedy with a 1970s feel to it, outlandish visual and verbal humour, left-field narrative turns, and the music of Glen Campbell.”

McDonagh adds that The Guard and Calvary were directed in a measured, contemplative style, relevant to the subject matter. “War on Everyone has a very different dynamic, one of quick-paced scenes followed by calm, contemplative moments. Stand-out shots are used at certain points as filmic exclamation marks. The tired grammar of shot-reverse-shot is largely dispensed with. Locations and sets are intensely stylised.”

Behind the scenes on set.

McDonagh also wanted to ensure that the performances were naturalistic and improvisatory, but also slightly surreal. He recalls that legendary director Stanley Kubrick once said to Jack Nicholson during the filming of a scene in The Shining, “It’s true, Jack, but it’s not interesting.”

McDonagh wrote the character of police officer Bob Bolano with Peña in mind, and he was the first to be cast. When Skarsgård was offered the leading role of police officer Terry, he realised this was a role unlike any he’d ever done.

Of his character, Peña says: “Bob goes outside the law a little bit, but he really cares about his family. I’m thinking Bob doesn’t get along with a whole lot of people. He likes to have his family close. Bob’s strengths are that he’s really good at talking to people and getting them to do what he wants. He makes a lot of empty threats. That’s worked for him for a long time. Terry is like the muscle. It kind of reminds me in a weird way of Midnight Cowboy and I’m the Hoffman character.”

“It’s important that people care about Bob and Terry and their relationship, even though they are very corrupt and in many ways very selfish,” says Skarsgård. “When you first meet Terry, he’s very lonely. He’s got a beautiful house and a great car but he’s got nobody to share that with. So he spends most of his time at Bob’s house. Bob is everything to Terry. He’s lost without Bob. Bob is his partner, his best friend and his family. The first thing Terry does when he gets up is open a beer, and then he drives over to Bob’s house.”

McDonagh posits that the most important thing in the movie is emphasising the relationships – especially that between Bob and Terry, Bob and his family, and Terry and Jackie. As Bob and Terry’s public actions are often morally suspect, their private interactions become more resonant as a way of creating sympathy for them with the audience. “If other people love them, then hopefully the audience will too,” he adds.