In Bruges (2008)
Aug 28th, 2008 by hmks
Rated R
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy, Jeremie Renier
Heidi’s Illustrious Rating: 3.75
Word of Warning: Lots of thick accented swearing. Copious amounts of drug use, prostitution and killing. Rather nasty jokes about Belgians. Almost all of the Ten Commandments are broken.
The biggest fan of this film has to be the Bruges tourism board. Several friends, who previously couldn’t have found Belgium on a map, visited Bruges on their recent trips to Europe. This isn’t meant as a put down – I’m not sure if I can find Belgium on a map – I think it borders France?
This is another movie I intended to see in the theater, but never got around to it. We finally rented “In Bruges” and I did enjoy it, however, I felt like I’d seen it before. Maybe I saw too many previews for this movie, but it really felt like it had been done before. (If anyone has any ideas about what movie “In Bruges” reminds me of, please let me know!)
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play hit men Ray and Ken. They work out of London for Harry (Ralph Fiennes). After a rather botched up hit on a priest, Harry sends the two men to “hide out” in Bruges, Belgium. Ray, a novice hit man, isn’t exactly enthusiastic about being holed up in the fairytale town of Bruges and the movie is chockablock with jokes made at Belgium’s expense. Ken, the elder of the two hitmen and longtime employee of Harry, wants to make the best of the experience by visiting museums and historical sites. The two cross paths with an American dwarf actor named Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), who is filming a movie in Bruges. Prentice provides some of the most amusing moments in the movie.
There is some very clever dialogue, especially between Ray and Ken. The storyline is a bit predictable, perhaps because I’d watched so many previews of this movie. Overall, it’s a fast-moving, quick-witted, irony-laden story worth the 1 hour 47 minute running time.
[...] my review HERE. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)DrainedBlack – A lesson to learn [...]
I have to share what my friend Heather wrote on my MySpace wall about “In Bruges.” Heather visited Bruges awhile back and took beautiful photographs of the idyllic town.
“yeah.. we saw that like a week before we left.. so it was sort of cool walking around and noticing parts of the movie set
Brugge is a like “freaking fairytale
”
***
…it is like another movie..sort of . ..i can’t remember right this sec ( just got home from work…drained :p)
but.. i do have to say that a client of mine told me of Brugge (Bruge, Bruges…it spelled all different ways on different maps & stuff… guess it depends on which language)fucking brugge….
anyhoo a regular about a year before, when we were in the planning stage of our trip told me that it was his most favorite place in all of Europe. I knew i had wanted to go to Belgium ( mmmm beeer
& we were also going to make it on up to Amsterdam..so it just sort of fit perfectly. after reading about it, i knew i had to go!!!
it was a really cool place. sort of like a movie set or a postcard. we spent 3 days there?? maybe 4.. can’t remember..it was awesome. having said that we also went to Ghent & Antwerp on our way up to Amsterdam. we wish that we had at least spent one night in Ghent! that place was really romantic also.. there is a quaint little area of town that reminded me of Italy ( or what i imagined it to be
I think Brugge at x-mas time would be really cool.
if you stay out of the Markt to eat & shop, it is less touristy.
so yeah.. I’m one of the folks that knew were Belgium was…& what Brugge was all about..imagine that! hehee
oh.. Antwerp(en) was lame.
tootles”
So thank you to Heather for that education! Plus, I realize I wrote my entire review spelling Bruges wrong! I missed the s on the end! It’s all fixed now.