In Bruges

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

I guess much like you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, you shouldn't judge a movie by its trailer. In Bruges looked like another generic, post-Tarantino crime comedy. As it turns out, there's nothing generic about it, and it's only maybe 25% crime comedy. The rest mixes elements of character study, heavy drama, and whimsical fantasy. And does an admirable job of pulling them all off.

It also has one of those endings where everything comes together, a bunch of coincidences pile on top of each other, and seemingly innocuous details from earlier all converge in a big ending. But not in a way I've ever really seen before... it comes together in a very bizarre, very dark way. I suspect that if there is one element of this film that people would really dislike, this would be it, but I must say I thought it worked well.

Brendan Gleason pretty much steals every scene he's in, but the whole cast is great, and I'd like to give Colin Farrell a shout-out. I always want to write this dude off, but every now and then he shows up in something like this, or A Home at the End of the World, and really shows how tender, exposed and affecting he can be as an actor.