If they had their way, In Bruges would have probably been named In F-ckin' Bruges, as Colin Farrell repeatedly refer to it throughout the film. Bruges (pronounced Brooz) is a place in Belgium with lots of genuine medieval architectures, swirling with channels that strike through the city. If you want to see how the film treats its titular location, just take a look at the Wikipedia page for the city, and you'll see pictures of the film's location sets. The merit of the place is debatable, depending on who you ask. Some characters in the film say it's a beautiful and magical—almost fairy tale—place, with wisps of fog at night that enhance the illusion. Farrell's character has a simpler description of it: "Sh-thole."
This ends up being the way the film treats everything mentioned in it: contradictory, with a side serving of snide. Colin Farrell gets to learn about what a rude f-ck-up he is, but not without making humorous quips that's intended to make him that kind of dumb bad boy.
An indie dark gangster comedy, the film sticks two mob hitmen, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) in the storybook tourist destination of Bruges. The characters say they're there to lay low after a hit under the order of their temperamental boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), but the movie says they're there to sightsee and get involved in comedic hijinks. Ray is the unimpressed young punk, who'd rather hit the bars and chase girls, while Ken is the gentleman hitman who lights up at the thought of visiting landmarks and museums. The partnership is familiar enough, and in fact writer/director Martin McDonagh had a variation of this in his Oscar nominated short Six-Shooter, with Brendan Gleeson also playing the older man. In Bruges paints Ray as both the comic idiot and the tragic figure. We learn through flashback that on his first hit job, Ray screws up big time and kills somebody he's not supposed to, landing him in a depressive state that is sometimes humorous and other times weepy.
In the first of many shots thrown at the country, Ken observes that it's nice how the city's located in Belgium, because otherwise people would actually want to go there and it'll be swarming with tourists. Take that, Belgium. More like a Guy Ritchie movie than a Tarantino one, the boys then indulge themselves in a series of wandering conversations, throwing crass jokes around, and having chance encounters with eccentric characters—all of which turned up knowing each other and eventually come to a head with a final chase/shootout.
With a story that barely exists (unless you count a tour and a stretched out guilt trip a story), the film sustains itself only by the great over-the-top performances by the three leads. Especially Ralph Fiennes, doing his best impression of an actual crazy mob fiend from London's East End who'd just been discovered by a film director and is acting for the first time. It's not one of Fiennes' better performances, but his manner-of-speech is dead-on and it's hilarious how legitimately angry he always looks. Colin Farrell's great at doing the nervous jerk bit, his character so terribly set up to be an idiot that the only reason we might have sympathy and endearment for him in the end is because of Farrell's boyish wrecked look. Brendan Gleeson, however, gets the best jokes—fortunate, because his comic timing is just impeccable. That still doesn't change the fact that a lot of the jokes are lowbrow and easy. For no apparent reason, Ray bumps into a family of fat American tourists and calls them elephants, followed by the fat dad chasing after Ray and quickly going out of breath. Throwaway gags like this litter the film. Forget the idea of it being offensive; it's just unoriginal and lame. It's not anti-politically correct humor, but rather determined to be politically incorrect—throwing in fat jokes, midget jokes, child killing, priest killing, and women-punching just for the sake of it—and all so predictably done.
There's no denying that In Bruges is amusing and at times a cackle-worthy film, but its attraction is modest and while it's entertaining for its performances, it's neither clever nor funny enough to make a mark. It just rests squarely on one of the better levels of the Tarantinoesque "quick-witted criminals" platform.
"In Bruges" opens February 8, 2008 and is rated R. Comedy, Thriller. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Starring Brendan Gleeson, Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes.
