Thursday, April 3, 2008

Overpriced Popcorn: In Bruges


Anyway you explain the story, it sounds like comedy gold: two hitmen hide out in quiet European tourist town. The town is in Belgium. One hitman (Colin Farrell) is a rookie, the other (Brendan Gleeson, ‘Mad Eye Moody’ in the Harry Potter films) is gay. The gay hitman loves the sightseeing, while the rookie is a foulmouthed lout. The rookie meets the girl of his dreams, and she turns out to be a drug dealer who tries to have him mugged (by her ex, with a gun, loaded with blanks). And there’s a midget who gets high with whores and makes racist remarks, and later dresses as a schoolboy. NOW, all that is hysterical on paper (and probably on weed, which is likely where a lot of these ideas came from), and it mostly translates onto the screen as well, in gloriously filthy and politically incorrect fashion, but there’s also a downer of a subplot with Farrell dealing with his shocking...error during his first kill. So if there’s a problem with In Bruges, it’s that the director couldn’t decide whether he wanted to make a screwball comedy or a sobering drama, so he made both at the same time. Luckily, the comedy wins as far as screen time.




In Bruges [uncensored trailer - NSFW]

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