In Bruges

Have you ever been to Bruges? Me neither. Apparently it is an amazingly beautiful little city in Belgium, complete with canals and spectacular medieval architecture. Who knew? Anyhooter, Bruges is the fabulously picturesque setting of this black little comedy... and it has a part to play, so to speak. As anyone who has been stuck for any significant length of time in a tourist trap can attest, a gorgeous backdrop can be remarkably tedious and more than a little sad.

So what happens In Bruges, is that Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are stuck hiding out in a cozy little hotel room for two after a poorly dispatched assassination. Crime boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) is rather adamant that they stay in Bruges, see the sights and lay low. Ray is having a hard time of playing tourist and having an even harder time of dealing with his new profession. Ken is trying to enjoy the vacation. There are lots of very odd and funny bits about tourists (American and obese) and dwarfs. There are lots of odd and funny bits about honor and responsibility regarding killing people. There is a fair amount of blood.

In the end, I would say that this was a moderately clever, mostly entertaining bit of blackness with some fine actors having a bit of fun. Fiennes does a splendid job as the psychotic Harry, hamming up the accent and the f-word. Colin does his vulnerability shtick and Gleeson is solid as the ever-faithful regular-guy sort of killer for hire. You end up sort of liking them all in a vaguely disturbing kind of way. Charming and offensive all at once. And Bruges is really gorgeous. See another review here.