At first beautifully slow, then just slow, and then a bit forced...

Rating: 6/10 (4 May 2011)

In Bruges (2008)
A quiet film about a couple of hit men hiding in Bruges, one of them loving it (played by Brendan Gleeson) and the other (Colin Farrell) bored and unappreciative. They run into trouble in several ways, mainly learning that they are not there to hide out after all, but this only turns into a kind of shoot 'em up climax that isn't what the movie's arc really intends. A couple of side characters have some effect on events, mainly a drug running love interest (Clemence Poesy) who is meant to be searing and different but comes off a bit stilted, and a dwarf in a movie being filmed there (Jordan Prentice) who is charming and a little incidental after all.
What really works best is the screenplay. The writing is sharp, and the idea, offbeat within a large and well-worked genre, develops with some nice turns. Oddly, the back and forth humor between these hit men doesn't quite gel despite their good dialog, and I think it's just bad casting or bad directing, because Gleeson and Farrell sure are trying to be ironic and wry and a bit doltish. Maybe they try too hard.
Or maybe it really is the direction, under Martin McDonagh, who did also help with the writing. This is McDonagh's first full fledged film (he made an earlier prescient short, "Six Shooter," also starring Gleeson). The complexity of the plot isn't overwhelming, but the threads seems to coexist rather than interweave. It gets especially single-minded (and heavy handed) when the master hit-man arrives, played beautifully by Ralph Fiennes. The violence becomes a series of tricks and spectacular effects, and it's entertaining but never quite gripping or enchanting or whatever it is this strange series of events is aiming for.
Bruges, which plays its own role in the film, is gorgeous, even for a hit-man, and the film was filmed there for good reason. But expect only a slight diversion here, one bubbling with possibility but falling flat on the tongue.