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Plot:
Bruges (pronounced "broozh"), the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Belgium, is a welcoming destination for travelers from all over the world. But for hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and K...( read more 
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:September 2, 2008
Ralph Fiennes in this movie was the best part of my week. The subtle humor was great, and I usually can't stand Colin Farrell (although he was still the weakest part, but good still).
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MCT:September 1, 2008
Dark and screwy. lol I thought I would laugh more, however, I was mesmerized by the dialogue. Colin Farrell is great but Brendan Gleeson is brilliant.
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MCT:September 1, 2008"After I killed him, I dropped the gun in the Thames, washed the residue off me hands in the bathroom of a Burger King, and walked home to await instructions. Shortly thereafter the instructions came through - "Get the fuck out of London, you dumb fucks. Get to Bruges." I didn't even know where Bruges fucking was."
Highly acclaimed Irish playwright Martin McDonagh accomplishes his feature film debut with the fantastic In Bruges. McDonagh served as both writer and director for this poignant, powerful morality narrative that merges equal quantities of humour and pathos. It seems McDonagh has a fondness for unrelenting violence and brutality, not to mention vibrantly-drawn characters that are predominantly contemptible.
In Bruges is an extraordinarily well-written story that never loses you during its slightly excessive running time. It's an ardently character-driven drama that draws palpable influence from the works of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino. McDonagh himself even stated that Nicholas Roeg's 1973 film Don't Look Now was among his inspirations while penning his screenplay. On that note the film isn't for all tastes, in fact the violence is hard-hitting and blood is splashed around with sickening realism. There's also sufficient profanity to rival Martin Scorsese! Yet, despite the insalubrious nature of the film's proceedings there's a deep, expressionistic character study lying beneath.
McDonagh has always been talented in creating fascinating, multi-faceted stories in his successful Irish plays. Not to mention his dialogue is clever, engaging and frequently encompass very subtle humour. However, the playwright also displays competency as a director. His script was already extremely effective, but he provides additional assurance for a successful script-to-screen transformation by taking the helm. As a result of McDonagh's directing the film is suitably intense, compelling, entertaining yet also emotionally-affecting. The product is a terrific, provocative black comedy with surprising depth.
Ray: "Bruges is a shithole."
Ken: "Bruges is not a shithole."
Ray: "Bruges is a shithole."
Ken: "Ray, we only just got off the fucking train! Could we reserve judgement on Bruges until we've seen the fucking place?"
In Bruges is permeated with three indelible characters - four if you count the quaint Belgian medieval town in which the film takes place. McDonagh chooses for the film to track two Irish hit-men: Ken (Gleeson) and Ray (Farrell). Said Irishmen are ordered by gangster kingpin Harry (Fiennes) to leave London immediately when Ray's latest hit ends with devastating consequences. Harry sends the two to the well-preserved medieval town of Bruges until he provides further instructions. Haunted with recurring memories of what he did, Ray is profoundly unimpressed with the tourist attractions on offer and finds the town excruciatingly boring.
"If I grew up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges would impress me," Ray whinges. "But I didn't, so it doesn't."
Ken takes advantage of the trip as he spends his time revelling in the fascinating locations and serenity of the town. He acts as a father figure to Ray, trying to let him forget about the past by introducing him to the culture of Bruges. Their experiences progressively grow more surreal as they encounter weird locals, violent medieval art, and potential romance for Ray in the form of Chloë (Poésy) who's working on the production of a European art film featuring racist American midget Jimmy (Prentice).
The real strengths of In Bruges are abundant. First of all, McDonagh allots the film's first half to developing his characters. Moreover, the engaging dialogue creates thoroughly entertaining viewing. It's McDonagh's gift for language that makes this film distinctively succulent. The writer-director even integrates a scene from the classic Orson Welles 1958 movie Touch of Evil to signify where he's at in terms of crime drama, essentially warning a viewer about the rug that's about to be pulled out from under them. In Bruges doesn't concern the narrative logic espoused by television...it's about injuries inflicted on the human heart. McDonagh also peppers the happenings with a child's death, graphic violence, drug use, politically incorrect witticism, irreverent remarks and adequate profanities to fill numerous Rob Zombie movies. The edginess nonetheless is never affected. In Bruges is an energetically character-fuelled tale that seldom misses its mark.
The skilful merging of genres should also be lauded. Throughout the entire duration there's definite dark comedy emerging. This comedy is very subtle, such as the witty dialogue or the amusing scenarios McDonagh has plonked his protagonists into. The second half speeds things up slightly, leaving the audience with a shocking conclusion. It is a testament to McDonagh's screenwriting that such plentiful cleverness never bogs the film into being a self-reflexive intellectual goof. Far from it, in fact. Anchored by Carter Burwell's magnificently melancholy score, In Bruges is an emotional and pungent drama/comedy complete with a lean script and lurid characters. The recurring motif of a fairy-tale is also extremely effective. A viewer should easily find themselves immersed in McDonagh's incredible world, and at the end you'll be so emotionally attached that you'll be left wanting more. This is quality filmmaking, and this standard is rarely seen in an ocean of contemporary tongue-tied Hollywood claptraps.
However it could have done with a trim. It's never boring and you'll be sad when it's over, but it still sometimes feels a tad excessive. Also, it's sometimes hard to suspend your disbelief. Like wondering when the cops will show up during a ballet of bullets, or when someone leaps off a bell tower. Any sirens? Not at all. What about someone driving a boat that doesn't appear to mind when a gun-shot is discharged and a passenger is lethally wounded? A train stopping for a police check in an isolated spot where there couldn't possibly be roads? Silly stuff for sure...still, you'll be entertained enough to overlook this.
At the centre of the film, the performances are absolutely remarkable. Colin Farrell redeems himself for all prior misdoings. After misfiring in such films as Alexander, it was a perfect move to team him up with McDonagh. Farrell's acting is so convincing that words fail me. He competently submerges himself into the character. The emotional edge Farrell brings to his portrayal at times (through either narration or character interaction) is amazing. In one particular scene, Farrell breaks down about the accidental bloodshed in London. Also, Farrell at times is like a child who's reluctant to sight-see. This amusing persona keeps us interested in the character.
Brendan Gleeson also puts forth a believable portrayal. We've never seen Gleeson of this standard before. He's a great father figure for Farrell's Ray as well. At times Gleeson will almost have you in tears.
Ralph Fiennes doesn't appear (we do hear his voice a few times, though) until the second half. He's a psychopathic marvel as the ferocious, relentless gangster kingpin with little affection for anyone ("You're an inanimate fucking object!" he screams at his wife at one stage).
The chemistry between the leads is sensational. Gleeson and Farrell are the unfortunate odd couple who periodically seem displeased to be in each other's company. Then there's Fiennes who appears to like the protagonists, but favours his principals even higher.
"There's a Christmas tree somewhere in London with a bunch of presents underneath it that'll never be opened. And I thought, if I survive all of this, I'd go to that house, apologize to the mother there, and accept whatever punishment she chose for me. Prison...death...didn't matter. Because at least in prison and at least in death, you know, I wouldn't be in fuckin' Bruges. But then, like a flash, it came to me. And I realized, fuck man, maybe that's what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in fuckin' Bruges."
Overall, In Bruges is definitely among 2008's best movies. I doubt anyone expected Martin McDonagh's film debut to be this terrific. Similar to his renowned plays such as The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman, etc, there's interesting characters and dialogue that's effortless to enjoy. The dialogue feels naturalistic and is loaded with profanity. Without the profanity the film couldn't have made the profound impact it was aiming for. We swear at work, we swear in everyday speech...it reveals character. For the most part we're meant to abhor these men due to their disgusting actions.
All in all the film is haunting and hypnotic in addition to being extremely good entertainment. As it is, McDonagh - with the help of an outstanding cast - has fashioned a knockout movie that I highly recommend. -
MCT:August 31, 2008I was curious in seeing this fillm,and wow,it was really really good. A LOT better than expected. Colin Farrel gives his best performance ever,by far.
I found this film to be very funny,sad,violent and overall just entertaining from start to finish. You cant help but to feel sorry for the characters. I liked this movie more than I thought I was gonna,and its definetely one of the best I've seen this year so far. A really pleasant surprise,you'll enjoy it. -
MCT:August 30, 2008
It is a dark comedy. I am fond of those. It an introspective feel to it, and its set in a gorgeous city. The theme of atonement really helped place this high for me.
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MCT:August 30, 2008
I loved the humour, Colin Farrell-of whom I'm not a big fan-and of course Bruges-it's like a fuckin'fairytale!
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MCT:August 30, 2008
The best movie of 2008! Part comedy, part drama, part surrealistic fantasy....this movie is worth checking out, you won't be disappointed!
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MCT:August 30, 2008
This was a pretty cool movie,I was just expecting more of what the trailer gives us.What you get though is kind of an unexpected suprise.A story of Regret,Haunting memories and even sadness at times.It's kind of a dark comedy,I liked it ,like I said if you are looking for the whole movie to be like the trailer you will most likely be disappointed.
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MCT:August 27, 2008Waht a crazy, kinda funny disturbing movie, the middle drug part of the movie lost me, other than that very well acted
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MCT:August 27, 2008
What a film!
The dialogue and chemistry between Farrell and Gleeson is perfect.
Ralph Fiennes puts in a maginificent performance too.
This is a full price movie. -
MCT:August 26, 2008
I really enjoyed this film. I'm not the greatest Farrell fan but he really did a fantastic job here. Funny and pretty intense..especially towards the end.
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MCT:August 26, 2008
The setting and style of this movie is absolutely perfect for the dark comedy strewn throughout. The acting is great all around and the story is bleak.
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MCT:August 26, 2008
In Bruges is not for everyone. Like its characters, it?s unruly, foul-mouthed and has a weird sense of humour and no concept of good behaviour. But even if those caveats whet your appetite, there?s another hurdle to overcome: the dread phrase ?British gangster movie?. In America, Martin McDonagh?s genre-stretching film already made a cautious bow at the box office, alienating some higher-brow critics who sniffed at its wayward and irresponsible tone but finding a surprising amount of support from grassroots cinemagoers, despite a very limited release.
It?s a strange film. Going into it, there are all kinds of questions you might be asking yourself - isn?t this just Sexy Beast meets Pulp Fiction? Isn?t Brendan Gleeson a bit above this kind of thing? What is Colin Farrell famous for anyway? - but, coming out, all that remains are the positives. In fact, one online review - posted on Metacritic.com by user ?Kristina? - accidentally nails its perverse charm while trying to slam it. ?Bad acting, unlikeable and underdeveloped characters, bizarre and stupid situations, too much blood, ridiculous ending,? she raged. But it wasn?t all bad news. ?My husband and I were both disappointed in this movie,? she concluded, ?but the one good thing about it was that we learned something about Bruges and would like to visit there someday.?
This barbed compliment would no doubt amuse writer-director McDonagh, and, more to the point, sounds like something one of his characters might say. Once you?ve seen the film (and you must, even if just to disagree with this very, very positive review) hopefully it?ll amuse you too, thinking of the individual who fidgeted and tutted through 100 minutes of swearing, violence and profane epistemology - not to mention rampant class-A drug and dwarf abuse - and after all that still fancied a nice city break. It?s fittingly bathetic too, because, though it superficially takes place in the same cartoon underworld as Lock, Stock and its offspring, In Bruges has more in common with a Mike Leigh film than any of Guy Ritchie?s.
Part of the reason for this is that McDonagh?s background, like Leigh?s, is in theatre, which explains both In Bruges? weakness and strengths. Like a good stage play, McDonagh?s film explores character through dialogue as well as action, and though this makes it somewhat static - even taking into consideration its frenzied, blood-spattered showdown - In Bruges is able to sneak in some heavyweight questions under the radar.
Though it speaks of contract-killing and cocaine-dealing, scoring and whoring, this surprisingly thoughtful film leaves plenty of ideas to be mulled over later, particularly those involving notions of audience identification. In Bruges is a film no Hollywood studio would ever make; it?s a film in which not one single foregrounded character - even the duplicitous love interest (the otherwise adorable Poésy) - is worthy of our sympathy, but by its enigmatic ending it has us, if not cheering them on, then definitely accepting them, and maybe even feeling genuine, if misplaced, affection for them.
The key line arrives a little way into the movie. Ray and Ken have arrived in Bruges and, while Ken is enjoying the majesty of the local architecture, Ray is behaving like a petulant teen. ?If I?d grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me,? he sulks. ?But I didn?t, so it doesn?t.? Though funny, this kind of banter isn?t exactly new in the general field of gangster movies, let alone the UK kind or its rarefied fish-out-of-water subgenre (see - or rather don?t - the Brighton-set Circus). However, when Ray looks across the town?s cobbled courtyard, where a camera crew is shooting, the film gets a much-needed jolt. Diverting from the smart-arse blueprint, Ray suddenly becomes a child again, his face melting with delight. ?They?re filming midgets!? he squeals.
Here, we enter the first of the film?s carefully laid minefields. The politics of the vertically challenged are as complex as they?ve ever been, so without wishing to offend people of size, we?ll stick with the film?s terminology for now (although Ray is told that ?midgets? prefer the word ?dwarf?). Jimmy, the ?little fella? being filmed - an incredibly game Jordan Prentice, whose early starring role in Howard The Duck (1986) suggests that he may actually be physically incapable of embarrassment - is a curveball thrown so elegantly by McDonagh that his fall from grace coincides smoothly with our growing fondness for Ray and Ken. During the film?s hilarious lads?-night-out scene, it takes us a while to realise that Jimmy, even to those who saw Peter Dinklage?s unsentimental performance in The Station Agent, isn?t just some afflicted victim to be pitied, he?s a flesh-and-blood guy like everyone else. And he?s a total arse.
Of the central pair, at first we?re drawn to the avuncular Ken rather than the goofy, irritating Ray. But once his terrible secret is revealed, Ray suddenly seems more vulnerable, perhaps even more romantic, than his thug shell suggests. It?s partly in the writing, but more importantly it?s in Colin Farrell?s sad, scared eyes, in a performance that reminds us that he actually hasn?t really had a chance to do much of this kind of thing over the past eight years or so. He?s joined armies and led them, played US cops and robbers, but with the exception of 2003?s Intermission he hasn?t done a human comedy, let alone the black kind, and the results here suggest he ought to do quite a bit more.
But Farrell isn?t carrying this engagingly digressive caper alone, and Gleeson makes the perfect foil, simultaneously despairing of, and caring for, his troubled, trigger-happy sidekick. While Farrell fits the stereotypical profile of the hip young gunslinger, Gleeson is the very antithesis, but just when you?re getting used to this offbeat casting, McDonagh plays his trump card. If you haven?t seen Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast, the payoff will be more effective, but even if you have, Ralph Fiennes? performance as grouchy crime boss Harry is still something to be savoured. With a Peter Cook drawl and dressed in Essex slacks and slip-ons, Harry is the true snake amid this already unsavoury ensemble, phoning Ken with his secret mission in Bruges while Ray is supposedly in the toilet (?Is he having a poo or a wee?? the oily Harry rather creepily asks).
With its three protagonists in place, In Bruges begins its frantic final act, which is where some of its artfully packed contents start to spill out, and the simple pleasures of its character studies give way to overexcited intrigue, tragedy and an inevitable climactic shoot-out. Still, this is a minor gripe about a film which takes a genre that shouldn?t be allowed any more, never mind encouraged, and fashions something provocative and original in its thinking.
Despite some deliberate nods to medieval theosophy, and a coda that?s more arthouse than grindhouse, In Bruges isn?t exactly Samuel Beckett?s Get Carter - let?s face it, if Samuel Beckett had written Get Carter, Carter wouldn?t have turned up, would he? But to fill that existential gap, both literally and figuratively, this savvy, punk-rock pistol opera will do very nicely indeed. -
MCT:August 25, 2008Smart-alecky comedy, snarkily sadistic and show-offily written; Gleeson provides many of the good moments.
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MCT:August 25, 2008
I'm not at all fan of Colin Farrell, but just after few shots I new I had to see this one. It was hilarious for most part, occasionally sad, beautiful and proved really worth seeing.
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MCT:August 25, 2008
I knew it wasn't going to be hilarious and it wasn't but not horrible. Live Ralph Fiennes and Colin Farrell.
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MCT:August 25, 2008
I loved this movie. It was funny, dark, satirical, and very touchingly human. Acting was top notch, my favorite roll to date for Colin Farrell. Although, not very PC, I would recommend it to many many people.
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MCT:August 24, 2008
Do not let the trailer fool you, this is a good movie. The dark horse in the comedy genre. To enjoy this movie it will require: a dark and sarcastic sense of humor. Farrell et al. are great and show the deep dynamics of so-called "gangsters'" inter-selves.
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MCT:August 24, 2008
This is the first colin Farrell movie I've seen and he is surprisingly good, I thought he was only action, but he is good in this comic role aswell. Assasins are people too. Great movie.
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MCT:August 24, 2008
Surprisingly good for a movie set in Belgium :p
Feels like a cross between a David Mamet movie and a Guy Ritchie crime caper. With a quiet air of desperation the movie slowly creeps to it's inevitable conclusion. The three main leads excel portraying delightfully human gangsters, -
MCT:August 22, 2008
I found it very entertaining. It really kept my attention through out and I may now be a Collin fan.
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MCT:August 22, 2008
The weirdest thing about this movie is that it's very dramatic but make you laugh every single line !
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MCT:August 20, 2008
Oh, Colin, Colin, how I love thy brooding nature and accent. But enough about that. In Bruges is an entertaining movie about hit men with souls full of funny one-liners and situations and a nice twist at the end.
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Comments
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MaydayKoigoposted 82 days ago -
A friendof mine & myself last night decided to go see a film, with no plans in mind of what to see.
After both quashing each others first couple choices, we agreed on this, since neither of us had any idea what it was about, but both said "Colin Farrell, cant be that bad".
What it was, was the BEST movie I have seen in a longtime that I had no expectations about. Funny as hell. Serious at the same time. It had midgets (uhh, dwarves), hookers, conmen/conwomen, hitmen, and so much more. It was random froms tart to end, but tied the whole package together well at the end. Comedic genius.
I cant figure out who the people are that have this down to only 3.5 stars, but they clearly are too politically correct to find ANYTHING funny, and thus hated this, because it does manage to poke fun at probably every race imaginable. But you still laugh when you heaqr it, because the delivery was great.
AA+++posted 199 days ago -
I SAW THE TRAILER AND IT LOOKED SOO FUNNY. I WANNA SEE IT. COLIN FARRELL HOTTTT.
posted 208 days ago -
Official sites for In Bruges (2008)
http://www.filminfocus.com/focus-movies/in-bruges/movie-splash.phpposted 212 days ago -
I was on the set. This film is frickin' awesome. Everybody better go see it.
posted 229 days ago -
i lived in bruges for 2 years and its not a stupid city !
but good movie i think .. but its not a stupid city !!!!!! :pposted 236 days ago
