Existential comedy?

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2008)

After a hit goes badly wrong, two hired killers (one of them older, experienced and word weary, the other raw, inexperienced and emotional) are ordered to hide out in the city of Bruges in Belgium, and to await further instructions from the Boss. Why beautiful, old, scenic Bruges, where nothing much happens, and when it does happen, it happens very slowly? Ah... Well there is a reason, which is crucial to the plot, and I am definitely not going to go into it here.
It's hard to know how to describe "In Bruges". Maybe it would be best to describe it as an existential comedy? I don't know. All I will say is that, if Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter had been commissioned to write an action movie/buddy-buddy comedy, they might have come up with something like "In Bruges". There are definite echoes of "Waiting For Godot" and "The Dumb Waiter" in the dialogue, the situations and the characters.
Simply put, "In Bruges" is just a gloriously funny and so-black-light-bends-into-it comedy. A brilliant confection of poetry, cynicism, innocence and slapstick. Great turns from Brendan Gleeson as the older, philosophical hit man Ken and Ralph Fiennes as barking mad Essex dog Harry, possibly the most unstable British gangster seen on screen since Ben Kingsley in "Sexy Beast". Maybe surprisingly, for some, Colin Farrell shows what a fine performance he can produce when cast in right part. His young killer, Ray, is a mixture of willfulness, innocence, childishness and regret. You feel for him. Really you do.
"In Bruges" will not be a box office smash. It is probably too lyrical and introspective for huge success, and also it has hardly been promoted, but I have no doubt that it will find it's audience as a cult movie on DVD and on late night Indie movie channel screenings.
It's a great film. You should go and see it. Really you should.