In Bruges
iView Author: Suprateek Chatterjee (Mumbai, India)
Email: supchats [at] gmail [dot] com
In Bruges
In Bruges. Directed by Martin McDonagh
Rating: 3.5 on 5
In Bruges does for the comic-hit man genre what several Guy Ritchie capers could not – elevate it to a film which deals with real human emotions, risqu'© humor and a tantalizing premise. Featuring a getting-better-with-each-film Colin Farrell who turns in one of his best performances, a brilliantly sympathetic Brendan Gleeson (Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter series) and the inimitable Ralph Fiennes playing one of his most memorable roles as a psychotic mob boss, this Sundance Film Festival crowd-pleaser packs quite a punch. If only the ending wasn’t as forced as it seems, but more on that later.
The premise is appetizing – two hit-men from England need to cool their heels for two weeks after a botched job, and their eccentric boss arranges for them to hide out in Bruges, Belgium. Ray (Colin Farrell) is an edgy youngster who was responsible for botching up the job – he was supposed to murder a priest, but ended up killing a young boy along with the priest, accidentally. Ray is trying his best to deal with his near-debilitating guilt while at the same time dealing with the boredom of being in a medieval town in Belgium in his own manic, hyperactive way. Meanwhile, his heavyset partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is older, somewhat wiser and revels in the idea of behaving like a tourist in “the most well preserved medieval city in Europe”, as he proclaims after leafing through a guidebook.
That’s it. That’s all I can morally reveal about the plot of this extremely well-scripted film. From here onward, we are treated to a wild, topsy-turvy ride through the uber-charming streets of Bruges – “a fucking fairytale place”. The biggest achievement here is that the town is used perfectly as a backdrop without ever seeming like a Travel & Living show segment. We see Ray dating an attractive local thief/drug dealer/prostitute? Chloe (Cl'©mence Po'©sy, Fleur Delacour from the Harry Potter series again – this movie’s sort of infested with them), injuring her thieving partner/ex-boyfriend/pimp? Eirik (J'©r'©mie Renier) in the process, and doing coke with a dwarf actor Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), who’s part of some weird, surrealistic European movie, and whose interests include getting it on with local prostitutes and getting high on horse tranquilizer. Yup, this is THAT kind of a movie.
Add to this some very Tarantino-ish rapid-fire dialogue, some raunchy and nearly politically incorrect humor (including some insights into the suicidal tendencies of midgets…..err….dwarves), some gruesome violence which even Messrs Eli Roth and Edgar Wright would be impressed by and sharp character development and you have what is an extremely satisfying cinematic experience. For two-thirds of the viewing length of this movie, I had lost all sense of time, and was sporting a silly what-will-they-come-up-with-next grin on my face.
The last one-third of the movie, however, almost falls flat on its face. One gets a feeling that the writer, realizing that the elaborate threads of the storyline had reached critical points, pushed the panic button and tries to hurry up the proceedings. Particularly, the way the last scene is done and the “irony” which is depicted rings slightly false, especially given the wild unpredictability and the genuineness of the rest of the movie. Ultimately, one wishes that more things had been explained, and that the movie didn’t end as flippantly as it does.
While Farrell is astounding as mentioned before, Gleeson brings about a certain paternal charm to his role as a sensitive hit-man who recognizes his colleague’s moral dilemma and chooses to stand up for him. Ralph Fiennes grabs this role and sinks his teeth into it with relish – he is introduced into the movie precisely at the right time and injects the proceedings with a healthy dose of cinematic adrenalin. This is one performance where after a long time he finally looks like he’s enjoying himself. Cl'©mence Po'©sy and Jordan Prentice provide adequate support.
Technically, the film is polished nearly to perfection. The cinematography is exquisite, with some terrific shots of the beautiful titular city. The background music by Carter Burwell is extremely varied and dynamic – fusing several styles and genres and featuring a gentle piano theme – and it works well. The editing is downright slick.
Ultimately, In Bruges will elicit comparisons with Quentin Tarantino’s work because of its subject matter and treatment. While it holds its own as an original piece of cinema, because of its unspectacular end it misses out on being slotted as an instant classic. However, it is a great, solid piece of cinema that’s fresh, modern and inventively written.
Oh, did I mention that this is Martin McDonagh’s debut? Yes, this is one great film to start off a career with.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Great review…this film gave me immense satisfaction and fulfillment as a viewer…and not many films have done that in recent times…
I agree with you on almost everything..
Martin McDonagh is one extremely talented filmmaker to look out for..
Dude u really found Farrell good in this ? I thought he sucked as usual.
i just had a post ready on SIX SHOOTER and IN BRUGES, and wow someone already posted on it.
anyways i thought this was the funniest film i saw this year…this guy is gonna be the next richie/tarantino.
watch SIX SHOOTER man its even better..
p.s- havent read your article completely yet (its almost 3 0′clock here), will come back to comment tomorrow
@mitch
dude i hate farrell as much as the guy next door but he was freakin brilliant in this, comic timing was spot on. i’ll even say he deserves a supporting actor nomination for this….
Bullshit. He ruined what could have been a classic. It’s only an also ran solely coz of him.
I really dont understand why people are going are ga-ga over this movie. Frankly i think this movie is highly over-rated.And i can vouch for it since i spent 160 bucks to watch this film….. And came out cursing & being cursed by my friends for taking them also to watch this film.
Sum of the good things about the film were the locations n the starcast. I went to watch this film especially coz of Colin farell.The initial hour was enjoyable.But thereafter it only goes downhill.And gets talk heavy to the point of being plain irritating . Especially tht bad climax.
The tagline of the film says “Shoot First Sightsee Later”. With a tagline like that one would expect if not much but at least of a bit of action. But the film simply goes nowhere till the last 15 mins when Ralph finennes arrives & some time later the movies ends so soon tht u end up thinking that why didnt they do this earlier. Overall A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice review!
The movie was a drama flick not an action flick and the bits of humor it had were absolutely hilarious!
Envious Debut Indeed. Loved it.
On Farrell.
No am not running after Mitch here on various posts. But I loved him (C.Farrell). As Rick says…..not a fan but he was bang on in Bruges.