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In Bruges
Although Colin Farrell spends the entire movie whining and moaning about it, the city of Bruges has every reason to be happy with Martin McDonagh's gangster comedy. It looks lovely, of course. "A fairy tale place" says hard man Harry (Ralph Fiennes), the most unlikely of romantics; all medieval battlements, cobbled streets, canals and gothic cathedrals. But that's the easy part. McDonagh has done the impossible and made this sleepy Belgian burg look sexy - albeit in a sleazy underbelly sort of fashion. Farrell plays a gobby, volatile Irish hitman, Ray, exiled to the city for an unknown duration along with his partner-in-crime, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), after their latest job has gone rather spectacularly awry. Why Bruges? That's what Ray wants to know. Belgium is not high on his list of places to see: "If I'd grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't," he explains. Ken, on the other hand, is enchanted. Nothing could please him more than to inspect the art gallery's collection of Van Eyck and Hieronymous Bosch paintings (even philistine Ray is drawn to Bosch's Last Judgement). In any case, he reasons, Harry wouldn't have sent them here just to lie low - there must be a fresh assignment in the offing. There is. But it's the last job he would have wanted.
Meanwhile Ray finds consolation in the form of Chloe (Clemence Poésy), drug dealer to the stars - at any rate, she supplies horse tranquillizers to Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), a dwarf actor who is shooting a very strange looking movie, and who, like Ray, is looking for a good time. McDonagh already has an Academy Award under his belt for the short Six Shooter, but he's better known for savage, provocative plays like A Skull in Connemara and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. His first feature has spurts of cavalier violence and great gales of unfettered bile and profanity - most of it played for shock and laughter: a racist monologue by the inebriated Jimmy, for instance, or a couple of comically virulent anti-American diatribes from Ray. (There's also a cracking if unprintable Belgium joke.) Comparisons with Quentin Tarantino are appropriate, though McDonagh definitely has a more "Old Europe" take on morality and guilt. It must be said he isn't in the same league as a director. He's certainly not adept enough to finesse the story's contrivances and some ill-digested writerly pretensions. The last act, especially, seems to take place on an allegorical plane that you could get away with on stage, but which rings hollow in the more realistic medium.
Farrell - who always seems more energized when he's acting in his native Irish accent - plays the none-too-bright Ray as a big kid, roiling between hedonism and despondency. Gleason is more than an effective foil. His lugubrious decency is practically beatific; all the graces notes are his. But I didn't believe either of them as gangsters, and while Ralph Fiennes is entertainingly OTT as Harry, his character gets more ludicrous the longer he's on screen. Mind you, even if it's no classic, In Bruges has several choice sequences of the kind you'll enjoy reliving in the pub afterwards (and which I won't divulge here). McDonagh's a talent, no doubt about it. And you just watch how Bruges tourism goes through the roof! Tom Charity 
More information about In Bruges » Critics' Reviews
Bruges is the best preserved medieval town in Belgium, reads Brendan Gleesons impressed Ken. Its a... read more on www.timeout.com Members' ReviewsReviews Voted Most HelpfulMost Recent Reviews |
Wally Hammond, Time Out