Stale Popcorn

I’m no fan of Colin Farrell. You’re all very much aware of this by now. In fact, only recently I was asked what I would do if I won the lottery. My answer was immediate; I would spend whatever it cost to go to Mr Farrell and murder him violently and slowly, then hire the best lawyers in the world to get me off with a defence that consisted of nothing more then highlighting Farrell’s cinematic CV to the masses and asking whether they too would feel short-changed enough by this “talent” to want to take revenge. Case closed! Put me up there alongside Barry George and Sion Jenkins (google them!)!I mean, let’s get serious a second, does nobody else feel a little conned by Colin Farrell’s schtick? He’s meant to be this good-looking, charming, charismatic, new “screen presence”? So why the hell is nobody going to see his movies? And, with that in mind, why the hell does he keep getting work? I can’t work it out. If I was a child-minder but every child I minded ended up dead, I would assume that at some point they’re going to stop giving me children to care for! So when every movie that Colin Farrell takes a lead or a co-lead role in flops or under-performs, you’ve got to wonder how he keeps getting work? Does he give ‘good head’ to studio executives or something? Come, the fuck, on here people! Look outside the box: Cassandra’s Dream, Miami Vice, Ask the Dust, The New World, Alexander, A Home at the End of the World, S.W.A.T., The Recruit, Phone Booth, Hart’s War and American Outlaws. That guy is in more need of a hit then a Kings Cross junkie!

In Bruges is a little different then the normal horrendous Colin Farrell movie! First of all because the word of mouth on this movie is actually pretty decent. Our very own Kristina repeatedly told me that this is the movie that can convert the “Farrell-Haters”. I wasn’t convinced. Partly because this just sounded like an inferior version of the fantastic 1998 Irish-indie flick, I Went Down (which is STILL disgustingly unavailable on DVD in any region, the VHS tape is going on Amazon for £26!) and mainly because I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to give up on my hatred of Mr Farrell just yet, if this did turn out to be good! I mean, if I stopped hating on him then what else would I do with my spare time if I’m not writing him threatening letters and burning life-like models of him?

But the review copy arrived and I kept sliding it down the pile, passed 27 Dresses, then passed Leatherheads and… well, eventually I was left with just In Bruges. Sigh. Damnit!

Bruges, the most well-preserved medieval city in the whole of Belgium, is a welcoming destination for travellers from all over the world. But for hit men Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), it could be their final destination; a botched ‘job’ back in London has resulted in the pair being ordered, right before Christmas by their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), to go and hideout in the storybook Flemish city for a couple of weeks. Very much out of place amidst the gothic architecture, canals, and cobbled streets, the two hit men fill their days living the lives of tourists. Ray, still haunted by the bloodshed in London, hates the place. Ken, even as he keeps a fatherly eye on Ray’s often profanely funny exploits, finds his mind and soul being expanded by the beauty and serenity of the city. But the longer they stay waiting for Harry’s call, the more surreal their experience becomes, as they find themselves in weird encounters with locals, tourists, violent medieval art, a dwarf American actor shooting a European art film, Dutch prostitutes, and a potential romance for Ray in the form of Chloë (Clemence Poesy), who may have some dark secrets of her own. And when the call from Harry does finally come, Ken and Ray’s vacation becomes a life-and-death struggle of darkly comic proportions and surprisingly emotional consequences.

Okay… let me just come out and say it; Colin Farrell isn’t “too bad” here. He’s not as great as what everybody is making out, but then - seeing as he’s better then normal, and normal generally means “fucking awful” - then I can see why people are getting carried away. What’s most revealing though is that writer/director Marin McDonaugh isn’t interested in doing what every other director (and I’m talking talents like Michael Mann, Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg, to name but a few) who has worked with Farrell thus far, has done: bought the hype and just let the Irish actor allegedly “sizzle” and “smoulder” on screen to pretty poor effect. He makes Farrell work. He makes him stop with the “Hollywood super-star” bullshit that he hasn’t actually earned, and he makes him go back to down-scaling himself into a “Cheeky Irish Chappy”. It works, I’ll say that much, but I think the hard work has been done by the director in getting the performance from him, not in Farrell giving it!

Brendan Gleeson is superb. He’s the heartbeat of the movie, not Farrell (who gets more of the screen time), Then again, has Gleeson ever been bad in anything? He’s like the Irish Brian Cox! He’s been in some pretty ropey movies but he’s been nothing short of stellar in all of them! He’s essentially playing a classier version of his character from I Went Down (it SO burns me that this movie is not available to the masses - it is the Irish Midnight Run) but he’s just brilliant from start to finish.

The real revelation in In Bruges though, is not Colin Farrell but Ralph Fiennes. I find Fiennes pompous and uninvolving as an actor in pretty much all of the work he does outside of Schindler’s List but here? Fuck me, he’s fantastic. He’s funny. He’s scary. He’s threatening. He’s the character you cannot take your eyes off and he’s barely on screen for a good portion of the movie!

Outside of the performances, the movie was good fun. There’s some great comedic one-liners and some very funny vignettes but the film never seemed to run together as one cohesive whole. It just felt like “There’s Ray teasing the fat American tourists!” and “There’s Ray fucking around with a dwarf!” but there never seemed to be a strong connecting line between the scenes that made it feel less like a ’sketch show’ and more like ‘a movie’.

In Bruges has future ‘cult gem’ all over it. I watched it twice over two days for the purpose of writing this review and it grew on me a great deal upon watching it a second time! I liked it a lot and could see past its flaws but I still think that to hang what’s great about this film round the neck of just Colin Farrell is to drastically undersell the more talented and accomplished work done by its writer/director, Gleeson and Fiennes!

This is well worth a look. Whether it’s the “greatest” this, that or the other is something that I’d very much debate. The “greatest” movie Colin Farrell has ever made as a lead/co-lead? Most definitely!