Ryan McNeil
In a perfect world, IN BRUGES would win the Oscar this Sunday for best original screenplay. It’s a slight longshot, so I’m not holding my breath. Still, it’s been days since I watched the film, and thinking back on many bits of dialogue still give me a grin.
IN BRUGES is about two Irish hitmen who, after carrying out a job, are ordered to lay low…in Bruges. Bruges, if you didn’t know, is a quaint town in Belgium. It’s the sort of place with cobblestone roads, swans swimming in the canal, and buildings that look like cuckoo clocks. For the easy going, and culturally thirtsy, it’s charming. Ken, played by Brendan Gleeson, is such a person. But to the restless, and uneasily impressed, it’s a shithole. That’d be Ray, played by Colin Farrell.
Watching Ken and Ray try to make the best of the situation, and try not to kill people – including each other – makes for one amazingly good, and amazingly fresh movie. Many of us have gone on a trip with someone like Ken or Ray, so their abundant enthusiasm/lack thereof is a familiar situation. Now throw in a sexy drug dealer, a movie-star dwarf, one or two handfuls of drugs, and a vicious mob boss. Sounds pretty good huh?
This is writer/director Martin McDonagh’s first feature length film, and given how sharp the dialogue is, I hope we don’t have to wait too very long for the next. (Think Guy Ritchie on his best day in his day). Another thing I hope doesn’t take too very long is for Colin Farrell to do another comedy. Admittedly, I’m a fan of his when he’s playing a cop (which he almost always is). But he has a gift for delivering comedic lines in such a way that makes them charmingly funny.
Case in point, he says the words “In Bruges?” about half a dozen times through the course of 105 minutes. It never stops being funny. That, my friends, is talent.
Especially when he says “In fooking Bruges!?”
Yeah, I’m in agreement. I resisted seeing it for awhile (after a lot of hype coming out of Sundance last year), but it ended up being highly entertaining and wrapped its plot up in a very satisfying way. It’s Farrell’s best performance by far from the ones I’ve seen.
I’m not sure I’d quite compare to Guy Ritchie though…There’s some apt comparisons during some of the more rat-a-tat dialogue sequences of In Bruges, but there’s a few slower more thoughtful sections to it. I found that Ritchie’s early work really depended on its style to deliver the full impact of the plot (nothing wrong with that, just different).
But yeah, an Oscar win would be keen.
I agree! I’m holding out hope the Academy recognizes this film.
Few films last year gave me as much pleasure as In Bruges did. Funny, witty and dark. As much as I’ve enjoyed Guy Ritchie’s stuff, I think this is far superior. Just bristles with far more quotable lines.
“The view up there? Of down here? I can see that from down here!”
“Maybe all those midget fellas killed themselves because…you know…they’re all really little, and that.”
“If I’d have grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t. So it doesn’t.”
I’ll stop before I get carried away. If you get a chance, check down McDonagh’s short film SIX SHOOTER. Similarly offbeat. Hope he wins the Oscar.