Movie Review: In Bruges (2008)

British people…I love you guys. You are both awesome and weird at the same time. First, your different dialects sound so odd and just great. My favorite accent from you guys is honestly Scottish. Irish is pretty cool too. You also have a tendency to make really good movies…too bad more than a fistful of them are not the most of them are the most well known. But I guess not all movies can be as popular as “Harry Potter”. And that is a little bit of a shame. But some actually get slightly more known (but never get up to “HP” levels). Today we are taking a look at such a movie. A movie featuring crime, drama and dark humor.

People, movie of today we are taking a look at “In Bruges”.

The story is about the two hitmen Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson). They work for a guy named Harry (Ralph Fiennes). They have been assigned to the small belgian town of Bruges. They have been sent there to await orders of their next job/whatever. Ray is not too happy since he thinks the town is a bit of a “shit-hole”. And Ray is kind of guiltstricken after a job earlier that had gone incredibly wrong. He was supposed to just kill a priest, easy as that! Unfortunately he accidentally also blasts the skull of a little boy as well.  But when he meets a young actress named Chloe (Clémence Poésy) he kind of changes his opinion, just because of him striking up a relationship with her. He also befriends an American dwarf named Jimmy (Jordan Prentice). With his new friendship and relationship he gets new appreciation of life which is good since the horrible situation he had been through made him somewhat suicidal. Ken gets the orders from Harry…and they are not good. Ken is not sure if he can carry out the orders since he have found a nice new chance at life in the fairytale like town of Bruges. So the story through the movie is good, but not flawless (not that anything ever is). For example it feels just a tiny bit slow some times. Fortunately, this movie is only 1 hour and 40 minutes long (if you take away the end credits). But the story works good and the comedy in it is dark…but awesome.

So the characters are flawed as all hell…but I honestly don’t mind. These characters are so odd and unique that they just work out for the best of the movie. I especially love the character of Ray since he is just this easygoing guy who doesn’t wanna do too much in life. Also he has an Irish accent, I mean…Who can’t love that!? Also, I have never thought that I would hear Ralph Fiennes (It’s pronounced Ray Fiennes by the way if you didn’t know) say “Fuck” as much as he does in this fucking movie. Wow…who knew Voldemort could curse like a sailor?

The music in this movie is good. It is a mix of ballads, classic music and just a tiny bit of rock. And the songs in this movie are memorable and honestly good, problem is that I don’t remember the name of them. And that honestly makes me sad since I really liked the soundtrack for “In Bruges”. If you find the soundtrack somewhere (Amazon, ebay, anywhere), please let me know!

This movie is honestly filmed so well that it just hightens the quality of it for me. It just looks really great! That is all.

The reception for “In Bruges” was pretty damn good. It got an 82% rating and is certified “Fresh”. It got a Metacritic score of 67/100 which may not be the best but hey, Metacritic usually holds the lowest scores for anything. Roger Ebert really liked the movie, he gave it 4/4 stars. Here is what he said:

“This film debut by the theater writer and director Martin McDonagh is an endlessly surprising, very dark, human comedy, with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished.”

It got an imdb rating of 8,0/10. Yet it is not on the Top 250 list. How?

So I have shown my opinions on the aspects of “In Bruges” and have claculated it to the score of 9,51/10. I really liked this movie, it is filled with great preformances and a story that should not be overlooked.

In Bruges is now reviewed.

See you next time.