In Bruges (2008)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 160
Fresh: 131 | Rotten: 29
Featuring witty dialogue and deft performances, In Bruges is an effective mix of dark comedy and crime thriller elements.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 12
Featuring witty dialogue and deft performances, In Bruges is an effective mix of dark comedy and crime thriller elements.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 94,222
My Rating
Movie Info
Having just carried out a particularly difficult hit in London, two hitmen seek shelter in Bruges, Belgium, only to find their views on life and death permanently altered by their interactions with the locals, the tourists, and a film crew. Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes star in an action comedy from director Martin McDonagh. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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Cast
-
Colin Farrell
Ray -
Brendan Gleeson
Ken -
Ralph Fiennes
Harry -
Clémence Poésy
ChloĂŤ, Chloë, Chlo? -
Jérémie Renier
Eirik -
Jordan Prentice
Jimmy -
Thekla Reuten
Marie -
Mark C. Donovan
Overweight Man -
Eric Godon
Yuri -
Rudy Blomme
Ticket Seller -
Theo Stevenson
Boy in Church -
Elizabeth Berrington
Natalie -
Olivier Bonjour
Film Director -
Stephanie Carey
Canadian Girl -
Jamie Edgell
Boat Driver -
Ann Elsley
Overweight Woman #2 -
Jean Mark Favorin
Policeman -
Zeljko Ivanek
Canadian Guy -
Sachi Kimura
Imamoto -
Anna Madeley
Denise -
Lois Nummy
Harry's Child #3 -
Inez Stinton
Kelli -
Emily Thorling
Overweight Woman -
Angel Witney
Harry's Child #2 -
Bonnie Witney
Harry's Child #1 -
Ran Yaniv
Barman
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In Bruges Trailer & Photos
All Critics (160) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (134) | Rotten (30) | DVD (6)
It plays really engagingly, with the leads doing a wonderful Mutt and Jeff act and the camera lingering lovingly over scenery that looks awfully pretty in the moments before it gets spattered with blood.
Top CriticFor all his movie's tough talk, it's a sometimes slipshod construction.
Its mock-artistic thriller trappings notwithstanding, 'In Bruges' is basically a funny, tragicomic two-hander, with the casting of Farrell alongside Gleeson enabling a pleasing Irish inflection.
This dark comedy shifts effortlessly between silly and sobering, and it finally gives Colin Farrell the chance to be as funny as we've long suspected he could be.
It's hard to mix dark wit with real tragedy, but that's what writer-director Martin McDonagh pulls off with In Bruges, a wonderfully realized examination of unintended and deadly consequences.
'After I killed him, I dropped the gun in the Thames' -- so begins In Bruges, an insanely clever thug's tale so rife with obscenity that those 11 words form one of the longest complete sentences that can be repeated safely here.
One of this holiday season's most pleasant dark-horse dramadies.
Moonlighting playwright Martin McDonagh yanks a trapdoor on his gallows humor - jerking from wry cringe comedy to a surreal congregation of blind skinheads, fat Americans and high midgets before a violent, solemn climactic parable about purgatory.
No chit-chat passes by without an ornate bit of would-be profane drollery
In Bruges, with its blunt, black wit running up against its moral fiber, manages to have its violent-crime-comedy cake and transcend it too.
Entre la comedia negra y la tragedia sangrienta, una película inusual y con ciertos rasgos de originalidad no apta para todos los estómagos o sensibilidades.
An intriguing mix of situational humor and existential dread, a balancing act of light and dark, memorably executed.
One of the most original films in years.
Maybe it's just that the cycle of hitman film escapades is played out for the time being, but In Bruges might have been better off using a silencer.
This is funny and touching; subtle whilst incredulous, any which way -- it's clever, endearing and lots of fun.
Playwright Martin McDonagh's debut feature of his own script shows still-tentative cinematic skills, yet his flair for dialogue and inanity delivers the laughs as the bodies hit the cobblestones.
In Bruges is funny and flashy, but as it ends you know you've been laughing because it truly hurts, and every flare and flash of the talking and the killing have left something much more subtle burned into your brain.
McDonagh's trademark is dark humor, the ability to humanize inhuman situations, and plot twists you don't see coming. Expect all of these here, along with gorgeous cinematography by Eigil Bryld.
The first film to earn a place on my 2008 10-best list, In Bruges is a laughing skull of a movie.
If you enjoyed last year's underappreicated You Kill Me, book yourself a return ticket to Bruges.
McDonagh directs with supreme confidence, just as he writes.
Audience Reviews for In Bruges
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Natalie: Harry!
- Harry: What?!
- Natalie: It's an inanimate fucking object!
- Harry: YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT!
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- Ken: Ray, you're about the worst tourist in the world.
- Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn't so it doesn't.
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- Yuri: You use this word? Alcove?
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- Overweight Man: Been to the top of the tower?
- Ray: Yeah, yeah, it's rubbish.
- Overweight Man: It is? Guide book says it's a must see.
- Ray: Well you lot ain't goin up there.
- Overweight Man: Pardon me? Why?
- Ray: I mean it's all windy stairs. I'm not being funny.
- Overweight Man: What exactly are you trying to say?
- Ray: What exactly am I trying to say? You's are a bunch of fuckin' elephants!
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- Ray: Isn't that what the Vietnamese used to say?
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- Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Low, deep and brutal, flawless and frolicking | 2 months ago | 2 |
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Foreign Titles
- Brügge sehen... und sterben? (DE)
- Bons Baisers de Bruges (FR)
Martin McDonagh is one of the sharpest and wittiest writers in the business today and for me it's a crime how underseen his blackly comedic and instant classic In Bruges is. In all of the film's success at being strangely depressing and monotone whilst somehow being funny and scary at the same time it is easily the most original British gangster movie since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This is the rare piece of weird, smart and unpredictable filmmaking energy that brings more to the genre it belongs with than the average expectations. The perfect example of that is a Colin Farrell performance that isn't dull and two dimensional but rather brilliant and genuinely interesting. Through every minute of the film his hilariously deadpan fish out of water chemistry with Brendan Gleeson results in a brilliant pair of crime thriller leads. The directing is as creative and sensitive as you might have expected considering McDonagh won an Oscar for his short film "Six Shooter" and his keen eye for fleshing out the locations are no exception. Personally I loved the slow pace that he decided to go with, he proves that zany one liners and stupidly electrifying direction don't always have to be part of what makes a fun and entertaining thriller. This is solid filmmaking and one of the most understated films i've seen in a good while. The gloomy depressed tone of the film magnetises perfectly with original and weirdly upbeat black humour so much that I forgot it was a crime drama and not an Edgar Wright-esque dark comedy. In Bruges is indiscreetly violent to fantastic dramatic effect, there's vast amounts of broad and memorable scenes of truly nail biting tension, and not once does the film give out a single hint at where any of it is going. It's somehow an "of the moment" film but concurrently grips you throughout it's seemingly short lasting duration. It's still at the top of my list for the biggest surprises of 2008. McDonagh's latest flick Seven Psychopaths will have to be pretty damn flawless to appear superior, at least in my eyes.