"You Can't Sell Horse Tranquilizers To A Midget!" - 'In Bruges' Review...
There are two very distinct halves to In Bruges. The first half is a subdued crime thriller that tells a story from the outside, through the eyes of two characters who have been removed from the action and don't know why. They live anxiously day to day, wondering what is going to happen to them, because something went wrong on their last assignment and they are nervously awaiting some kind of punishment, thinking hopefully that this exile from London to the country town of Bruges, Belgium might actually be that punishment.The other half of the movie is the much more violent part, peppered with extreme violence, bizarre characters, a few of what I call Movie Miracles, which are situations that can only conceivably happen in movies when the plot needs an extraordinary coincidence to keep things rolling. The second half is going to put off a lot of critics, but the action fans in the audience are going to love it.
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play Ray and Ken, respectively, two ordinary hitmen who are suffering through the tense aftermath of a not-so-smooth contract killing. The movie starts with them being sent to the town of Bruges to await further instructions from a man named Harry, who we only hear on the phone for the first half of the movie but who eventually appears in a wonderful performance from Ralph Fiennes.
[caption id="attachment_22187" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ken and Ray brainstorm about the meaning of their exile to Belgium."]
[/caption]Ultimately, Ray is given an assignment that catastrophically results in an accidental bystander death, and in the worst location imaginable, which causes Ray's mental stability to spiral out of control and sets in motion one of the several different story-lines that merge brilliantly at the end of the movie.
I am always most charmed by movies that cleverly and successfully weave multiple storylines that come together in and interesting and unexpected way at the end of the film, and that definitely happens in In Bruges, which has been deservedly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Colin Farrell, who has never been one of my favorite actors, delivers a spot-on performance in the movie as the afflicted hitmen Ray, playing his character with a wonderfully balanced combination of violence and morality. And his performance here is even more impressive when compared to the performance he gave in this year's Pride & Glory, which also deserved recognition for it's screenplay, although it was overlooked. Ray suffers deeply, and even though he's a callous criminal we suffer with him, and that's not an easy thing for an actor to pull off.
[caption id="attachment_22186" align="alignright" width="201" caption="Harry doesn't take bad news well..."]
[/caption]The characterization in the movie is probably the most brilliant success of the screenplay, which gives us one of those stories packed with situations and events that seems nearly impossible to have been simply made up. It's full of dialogue that is so brilliantly written and situated within the movie that it seems an automatic choice for awards season, and there is not a predictable moment in the movie. In one scene, when Gleeson's character Ken has a meeting with Harry, the criminal boss that both Ken and Ray deeply fear, Ken tells him:
"Harry, I'm not being funny, and I mean no disrespect. But you're a c*nt. You're a c*nt now, and you've always been a c*nt. And the only thing that's gonna change is you're gonna become an even bigger c*nt."
I don't know what it is about situations where someone disobeys direct orders and then flings their disobedience in the face of their superior with such vulgar style as this, but there are few things more amusing and gratifying in a movie like In Bruges.
This is not a movie for everyone, the violence is both graphic and extreme in many situations, but as an example of bloody entertainment with a fine script and outstanding performances, you can hardly do better than this. I recommend it highly!
The Bean Meter
[caption id="attachment_22182" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="4.5 Beans out of 5."]
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