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In Bruges (2008)
Director: Martin McDonagh
Movie review
From Time Out New York
The world wasn’t exactly clamoring for another movie about sensitive hit men—not least one directed by a first-time feature filmmaker with a playwright’s tendency to favor words over action. As in his stage smash The Pillowman, McDonagh (who won a short-film Oscar for his “Six Shooter”) writes his scenario in every direction at once: Sequences are overexplained; characters are belatedly introduced; a lone flashback feels shoehorned in.
But In Bruges achieves a kind of zany momentum all the same, as any movie featuring a drugged-out dwarf, a cycloptic thief and an irritable Canadian sightseer as running characters might be prone to do. All parties are united in Bruges, the medieval Belgian city-cum-tourist-spot where the assassins (nervous rookie Farrell and genial old-timer Gleeson) have been instructed to hide out. Whether they’re in “fucking Bruges”—as Farrell, atypically solid, calls it—on a hit or a paid vacation is an open question. As these accidental tourists navigate a landscape of cathedrals and gastropubs, McDonagh immerses them in an interplay that’s half Beckett, half Mikey and Nicky. The two men contemplate the morals of their profession, with Farrell grasping for redemption through a tentative romance with a local (Poésy).
Rich with a Mamet-like tendency toward tautology (“History—it’s all a bunch of stuff that’s already happened”), McDonagh’s dialogue is often bruisingly funny, particularly once hambone Ralph Fiennes makes his belated entrance. If he hasn’t yet learned to trust the camera—Don’t Look Now is explicitly mentioned, as though the combination of canals and a dwarf weren’t enough—McDonagh’s sense of the absurd never falters.
Author: Ben Kenigsberg
Time Out New York Issue 645: February 7-13,2008
User reviews of this film
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- mad boy said...
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Posted on Apr 29 2008 12:28
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Report as inappropriate
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- Dan said...
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Posted on Apr 25 2008 20:52
It's like Quentin Tarantino got together with Ricky Gervais, to write about two Irish hit-men.
...very good film, if you like either, or both of the above.
Check it out. I loved it. - Report as inappropriate
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- Tony Brignull said...
- Posted on Apr 25 2008 06:04 This is a grown-up film which asks an adult question: is redemption possible when the sin is as ghastly as they come. And can art, architecture and the love of women help? Despite the bloody ending the film suggests that if these characters are savable (and they all end better than they began) so is mankind. Truly moving.
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- Gin said...
- Posted on Apr 23 2008 08:47 Was not bothered about seeing this but went along and LOVED it. Fantastic acting, scripts to rival Taranteeno and a lovely touch of hunour in a balck sense - makes you laugh. Theonly film I've seen this year to rival it is No Counrty for Old Men. Go see it.
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- libby said...
- Posted on Apr 11 2008 04:24 Very British, very politically incorrect and very funny
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- C. del Balso said...
- Posted on Mar 16 2008 15:45 This really was one of the dumbest movies I've seen this year. Some--very few funny bits--and the dialog was sometimes painful. We should have gone to see The Bank Job!
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- Elizabeth said...
- Posted on Feb 07 2008 15:21 Previewed the movie in advance, didn't expect to like it. Loved this movie, funny in a dark way. See it.
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Cast & crew
Director: Martin McDonagh
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy, Jordan Prentice, Zeljko Ivanek, Jérémie Rénier full cast
Rated: R
Duration: 107 mins
US Release: Feb 8 2008
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