A great story, but badly executed

Rating: 3/10 (24 August 2008)

Reading through some of the other reviews for In Bruges, I began to wonder if I had seen a different film.
The one my wife and I saw  on DVD  had a great story, but a story that was destroyed by over-wordy, heavy-handed and unfunny dialogue and a director who seemed unsure of what he wanted the film to be. Was it supposed to be farce? Perhaps a gentle comedy? Maybe a thriller with comedy overtones? Perhaps a black comedy? Who knows? At times we felt we were watching an episode of the British TV sitcom "Father Ted", but without the fun.
As I have already stated, it was a great story, but it needed two primary changes: A script-editor with a ruthless approach to dialogue and a director with a true sense of what the film should have been.
Finally, a thought: imagine what a wondrous film this would have been with the Coen Brothers at the helm.