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Rating: 5/10 (5 September 2015)

There is something to admire about In Bruges. It's a black comedy, which is the hardest genre to make, as it comes with all possible pitfalls of both humor and drama. It's ambitious in themes and symbolism. The script makes an ingenious use of set-ups and pay-offs: every element or character introduced in the first half has a relevant consequence in the second - a sort of Chekhov's armory.
And its premise is intriguing: killers Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Gleeson) hide in Bruges after a botched assassination, waiting for further instructions by their boss Harry (Fiennes). Ray is fuming with boredom and irritation; older, pensive Ken enjoys the atmosphere of the enchanting medieval town - until Harry orders him to kill Ray.
Writing in this movie has something of a cult following. Humor is subjective, but I found it hit-and-miss. See, the problem isn't the amount of jokes about gays, blacks, yankees and dwarfs (the latter turned into a painful running gag); Tarantino, for one, thrives on this politically incorrect stuff - except he is actually funny, has a point to make and a gift with words this script doesn't display. Smug cynicism is mistaken for humor; we are supposed to laugh because a man child is obsessed with "midgets". You can wax philosophical, portray Bruges as a sort of purgatory, fill the movie with imagery straight from Bosch... but, after the fourth dwarf joke, your lofty ambitions scrape against your facile humor - it wasn't that funny even the first time, McDonagh.
See a confrontation between Ray and Harry when a pregnant woman angrily stops the armed men waving guns in her hotel and, when they agree to go kill each other outside, quips "You people are crazy!". This isn't "deep", it's a sketch. Confront it with another aborted Mexican standoff - the one at the end of Pulp Fiction, which had humor, tension and the affecting musings of a man rethinking his life.
Ray, who has the central arc, is unbelievable: a killer who acts like a goofy 10-years-old and switches between moping for his hatred of Bruges, pursuing a local girl (Clémence Poésy) and feeling devastated for accidentally shooting a kid. That's not a character, it's a coat rack for a writer's unused ideas. More coherent and interesting is Gleeson's melancholic Ken.
For the definitive black comedy about anti-heroes dealing with honor, karma and atonement, watch Pulp Fiction. For more light-hearted crime comedies, good picks are Guy Ritchie's Snatch and Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - and, for a straight-up comedy about neurotic killers, Richard Armitage's Grosse Pointe Blank.
What's odd is, McDonagh's following (and better) movie Seven Psychopaths is the opposite of this - a paper-thin premise, but a script which is actually amusing.
5,5/10