This is nearly the best DVD rental I've seen this year, second only to 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.'If you can withstand a little Irish swearing... ok, A LOT of Irish swearing (it must be near impossible to find any footage without swearing in it), then you will be in for a treat.
With a cast of homophobic, racist, sexist, sizeist, anti-American, anti-European, anti-Tottenham, disability-mocking characters, this film has something to offend just about everyone. And therein lies it's surprising charm.
Seems there'd be no characters to really connect or empathize with (unless you're a hitman/gangster), but that's the beauty... the characters are superb!
The first half of the film is a salty odd-couple comedy, as we're invited into the aftermath of a botched hit involving Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) as they're sent to Bruges (Belgium) to lie low for a while and sample the culture. The second half is a plunge into blood, doom and existential/spiritual metaphors (guilt, sin, redemption, the whole Christian bag of screams). And it's brilliant characterization that yokes the two together.
Admittedly, it's a sushi movie (you'll either love it or hate it). Absurdist, existential, ultraoffensive, ultraviolent comedies aren't everyone's bag, but in the saturated ghetto of gangster/caper films, In Bruges offers something completely unique.
