Director dropped the ball on this one

Rating: 5/10 (16 April 2009)

Beautiful scenes of Bruges & an above average performance by Farrell can not save this clunker. For starters every line in this movie sounds like it was written for maximum irony or humor. There isn't a single line that sounds like something someone in such a scenario would actually say. Secondly, every plot development is predictable & completely implausible. If it's true that Bruges has no police & that no one in Bruges ever calls the police when crimes are committed, it would seem to be reasonable to conclude that Bruges would be the hub of criminal activity in Europe. But it's not, & people's behavior in this movie is just completely implausible, from beginning to end. The director so obviously drags out the final scene, with what is probably supposed to increase tension for the viewer, but it's really just tiresome. How many times does he have to shoot the Farrel character & not do it? How many times does the Farrel character have to get away but just stand there to what for him to catch up? It has all the subtlety of a film student's final project. Finally, Ralph Fiennes can't act & he's particularly atrocious in this thing. I'm surprised by all the praise heaped on this, rather derivative "hip" gangster flick, but then again the quality here on IMDb really has taken a nosedive over the past decade. If flashy, hip gangsta films are your thing then maybe you'll enjoy this, but if you really want to laugh "lock stock & 2 smoking barrels" has many more laughs & feels more natural than this thing (in spite of its more implausible scenarios).