'A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves...'

Rating: 9/10 (23 August 2008)

All I knew before watching this movie are the actors that are in it. I like all the actors involved and I thought that this might be a good movie to watch, but I really had no big expectations. But I was surprised at the end. "In Bruges" is a really good movie, with great dialogs and great actors and what I cannot forget to mention: brilliant photography that presents us all Bruges. There is no panoramic scene same like others. Just great! Movie is in some things similar to "The Matador". There, we've got only Brosnan shining in not so good movie; but here we've got Farrell & co. shining in very good movie. I must admit that I didn't expect such a good performance from Farrell after disappointing "Alexander", "Ask the Dust" and "Miami Vice"; at least disappointing to me. So about the script.
Movie is about two professional killers Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) who come in Bruges on some sort of vacation. There, they must keep low profile and wait for the further instructions of their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes). As the movie goes on we found out that Ray is troubled by his first job. He accidentally killed a young boy while he was trying to kill his target. Because of that he's got suicidal thoughts. And one more thing, Ray really dislikes Bruges. His older partner, Ken is enjoying in Bruges and its culture, with all that old houses, churches, towers and canals. Ray meets Chloë on set of the movie that took place in central of Bruges. But soon Ken is given instructions to kill Ray, because of his incident with the little boy.
"In Bruges" is first long movie of Martin McDonagh. McDonagh wrote a fine scenario, where he puts one younger and older killer in front and fills the movie with big doses of dark humor (mostly coming from Ray, who acts sarcastic about everything) and nice turn in a story. I must say that the ending is quite unexpected; it's not American happy ending where everybody lives happy after. That's why this movie is so good. With message that you must follow your principals and with lots of irony, humor and strange events (like dwarf war). Also McDonagh presents his characters like ordinary people, with all their problems. But what's most important is that he managed to combine humor and human tragedy (Ray falls in love but he must be punished because he killed a child) in a way that at the end you feel sorry for main characters even though there is no completely positive character (only that little boy). So, "In Bruges" is not a movie for everybody. If you expect action comedy, look somewhere else. Cause this movie has a big touch of drama and makes you think about it. Great debut for McDonagh, one of the best roles for Farrell and great movie for me (and I hope for all of you).