In Bruges

I think I’m probably just going to write my blog posts about movies now. In Bruges is a dark comedy starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. I recently saw this movie, and I was astonished by the fact that I had never seen it before. It pretty much had all of my favorite elements that can make up a movie. Obviously this is just my opinion, but ya’ll should give it a try.

The movie starts, believe it or not, in Bruges, as two hitmen get off of a train. One of the main characters, Ray (Farrell), had just completed his first job, but it had gone awry. Ray had killed the man that he was supposed to kill, but one of the bullets went through the target and killed a young boy. He was obviously shaken by this, but he tried to keep it from consuming him. Ray and the other hitman, Ken (Gleeson), were instructed to hide out in Bruges until their boss contacted them with more information. Ken was happy about the trip to Bruges, since he would be able to take in and experience all of the medieval culture that Bruges has to offer. Ray, needless to say, is not as impressed. He thought Bruges was a dump, and he got bored extremely quickly. I think it’s very interesting that both of their reactions were actually based on the director’s experience when he visited Bruges. He said there was so much interesting culture, but he was bored after a day. The story was originally based on two people who had different views of the same city. The fact that they were hitmen was added afterwards.

I don’t want to spoil the movie, so I’ll just say that it gets really good. While there are jokes throughout the movie and it might seem like a comedy in retrospect, there is an incredibly somber tone that is set by the fact that Ray accidentally killed a kid on his first job. Farrell did a fantastic job of portraying Ray, since his mannerisms were similar to those of someone who is anxious, but it wasn’t blatantly obvious. Throughout the movie, it could be seen that he was trying to distract himself from the fact that he killed a kid. He was able to distract himself with a Danish actress and an American actor who was a midget, but he was only distracted for a short while.

Most of the comedy comes from the fact that all of the characters are brutally honest. Discovering how Ray thinks is often funny, and it is mainly achieved by observing his interactions with people. At other times, however, his mental state is incredibly saddening.

The boss, Harry Waters, was played by Ralph Fiennes, and he did an impeccable job. He is condescending to the point that it’s almost tangible. In the same way that some people want their lives to be narrated by Morgan Freemen, I want to be criticized by Ralph Fiennes’s Harry Waters.

Until next time,

Adrian Fedorko