Great Performances and Dialogue Make IN BRUGES a Modern Classic

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2011)

I first saw the dark comedy-thriller IN BRUGES (IB) in our local multiplex back in April 2008, and I loved it immediately. No wonder writer/director Martin McDonagh's screenplay went on to be nominated for an Oscar, and co-star Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical! When McDonagh's short film SIX SHOOTER, starring Brendan Gleeson, won the 2005 Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film, I was already familiar with his plays (including the 2005 Broadway hit THE PILLOWMAN with our family's household fave Jeff Goldblum), so I looked forward to seeing Gleeson work with McDonagh again in IB. I wasn't disappointed. McDonagh's quirky, funny, soul-searching dialogue is a joy to hear. It's chock full of profanity, but the delivery renders it more comical than offensive. The filmmakers even spoof the "adult language" in one of the DVD's bonus features, a montage of every time the word "F***" is used in IB.
Gleeson and Farrell make a great seriocomic team as Ken and Ray, two Irish hit men who have suspenseful and surreal adventures hiding out in Belgium in the magnificent city of Bruges after their latest job goes horribly, heartbreakingly wrong. They're the ultimate odd-couple tourists as they await further instructions from their boss, with Ken enjoying the sightseeing and the swans as Ray spews forth befuddled, unfavorable, hilariously un-PC opinions of just about everything and everyone he encounters, except a pretty Flemish production assistant (Clemence Poesy of 127 HOURS), who's as full of surprises as our undercover assassins. Farrell gives one of his very best performances, blending laugh-out-loud comedy and guilt-ridden heartache beautifully. My favorite running gag was Ray's childlike fascination with dwarfs, and his oafish but well-meant concern for cokehead dwarf actor Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), who's in the fairytale-like city to appear in a dream sequence in a local indie art-house flick. As Harry, the boys' crime boss, Ralph Fiennes does a terrific job channeling Sir Ben Kingsley as the terrifying Don in SEXY BEAST (I assure you, that's a compliment!). IB mixes suspense, melancholia, and hilarity very well indeed. Along with THE BANK JOB, IB was my favorite crime film of 2008. The DVD's featurettes and deleted scenes are fun, too, including interviews, a captioned boat tour of Bruges, and a deleted scene involving Matt Smith in his pre-DOCTOR WHO days -- and a machete! The many deleted scenes are all quite entertaining; I'm sure they were only cut so IB wouldn't be a 3-hour epic! :-)