A huge disappointment!

Rating: 6/10 (8 March 2008)

I was looking forward to this, being a huge fan of Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell AND Brendan Gleeson.
Bruges is a character in the film too, a beautiful Bruges, canals, cathedrals and lovely cobblestones. Lit beautifully by Eigil Bryld.
But all of this was not enough to sustain the beginning of a pretty good story line to the end. It just got murkier and murkier along the way until I just didn't know what kind of movie it was trying to be. Drama? Comedy? Noir? Slash? One of my hated clichés in ANY movie is the corpse that just won't die. You know the type, shot, knifed, thrown from high building, bleeding copiously in all directions but the damn thing keeps spewing out advice or death-beddy bon mots while climbing messily to great heights gushing and smearing blood everywhere. Without spoilers, this film had a surfeit of such clichés. I groaned again and again. And again.
Colin and Brendan, playing hit men Ken and Ray, shine in a slowly developing relationship that is foisted upon them by their boss. There are some funny bits. One gets invested in the characters. A few twists and turns to the plot follow. Not all successful.
Ralph Fiennes, for once, is a little over the top as the head of the hit organization. He was Ralph visibly acting.
Brendan was brilliant and deserves an award for his performance. What this man can do with a shrug or an eyebrow is magical.
But overall, I was disappointed. 6 out of 10.