IN BRUGES Discussion

It's Martin McDonagah. What did you expect?

Seeing it tonight at the advanced (well, not really "advanced") screening in New York. Looks like it'll be a fun time!

As a sucker for quotable dialogue, I can't wait!

Take away the acting and I've got little love for this flick. The whole purgatory angle was forced at times, limp otherwise, and the last act tried for a Grand Guignol hipster assassin vibe and seriously failed.

Matt, everyone, seriously, read The Pillowman.

Seriously?

It's not a book, it's a play. And you can finish it in a couple of hours. I'm just saying, kind of weird that you don't know who McDonagh is.

I've been passing copies of the play around to every literate person I know.

The Pillowman is quite simply the best play written this decade. Possibly since Arcadia.

In Bruges, which I saw tonight courtesy of Chud, is so much better than I expected. I unreservedly loved it, and I am generally not a fan of cockney thug crime comedies. Maybe it was lowered expectations, but for me, this was a total blast. I can't really explain why the purgatory thing worked so well for me until it's at least opened, as its all spoilers, but I thought the construction of this script, and this theme in particular, was quite clever and fun. The acting is great, and as a director, McDonagh really knows how to shoot a film and juggle massive tonal shifts.

It has some problems, to be sure, but as a genre picture, it's great. I far preferred it to such January Chud faves as Running Scared and Smoking Aces, and would compare it favorably with something like Hot Fuzz.

The problems people have had with the film are McDonagh's style. I know that sounds condescending, but what he does is very off putting when you're first exposed to it. The tonal shifts are consciously jarring. A scene can be funny, sad, light, dark, and uncomfortable...all at once. I haven't seen the film yet, but on the page I found a lot of the choices to clash, but in hindsight it all felt close to perfect.

I could come back this weekend and say I was wrong, but we'll see.

Caught it last night at ye olde CHUD screening, too and was surprised. It's a solid screenplay and while some of the things irk me (seriously, that hotel manager was put there just to be an obstacle) and the film definitely couldn't decide where it's tone lay, I enjoyed it. Bredan Gleeson was touching and Ralph Fiennes, despite playing a "coont", well, at least he was a principled cunt. Colin Farrell needs to do more dry comedies as he's pretty good at it.

Seriously, are all hitmen existential whiners? Aren't there hitmen out there who don't want out/screw over their boss/find a better life? There have to be assassins who enjoy the fuck out of their job, right?

It's not weird, just unfortunate. Unless you follow the theater scene, you would have no reason to have heard of him.

However, as a playwright, he is about as good as anyone you can think of. You could do much worse than read any of his big plays, The Pillowman being probably the best and most wide reaching. But he also wrote half dozen grand guignol black comedies about working class Irish people offing each other, and each one is a sort of mini-masterpiece. He's part of a ridiculously talented group of current Irish playwrights that are essentially keeping the straight play alive as an art form. But I digress.

The Pillowman is well worth everyone's time. It's a comedy about the torture and murder of children. But that is a very flip way of describing a play about art, censorship, family, responsibility, and tons of other things. Despite the excellence of this year's crop of films, The Pillowman blows them all away. Granted, I do have the advantage of seeing the landmark Broadway production with Billy Crudup, Jeff Goldblum, and (In Bruges's) Zeljko Ivanek, but it reads really well too.

My take- http://chud.com/articles/articles/13...AKE/Page1.html

Definitely going to have to check out those plays. Has anyone seen Six Shooter? It's $1.99 on iTunes. Going to have to grab it later.

And a big thank you Alex for getting this broke bastard into a movie! For free! And before release!

Yeah, seriously, at 11.75, NY movies prices are becoming untennable. Thanks a bunch.

I just watched Six Shooter. It's a must download.

No prob fellas. I should've mentioned that I was coming so I could've said hello to you guys. I was sitting in the nice, roped off reserved section looking smug.

More on the way!

Watching this film, I realized that now it's all about who HASN'T been in a Harry Potter movie at this point. There are 3 cast members in the film that have been in at least one of the Potter movies.

I had a great time with this film. I didn't see any trailers for it and went in cold. As much of a crybaby as he was, I found Colin Farrell to be very likeable and sympathetic. I haven't liked Farrell this much in a movie for a long long time.

Brendan Gleeson... well what else could I add? The man can make any character sympathetic. I'm sad when he's wasted on outright villainy in movies like Kingdom of Heaven and Troy.

Ralph Fiennes. Wooooooooo.

I had a great time with this flick. The tonal shifts can be jarring, but it makes things more interesting.

Farrell has never been a favorite of mine but he does a great job here. And I don't need to gush over Gleeson since we all know how much he rocks. All that said, Ralph Fiennes steals the whole damn movie. Probably my favorite "bad guy" in a long time and likely to be one of my favorite performances of the year.

Lots of midgets commit suicide.

They prefer to be called dwarves.

I've seen SIX-SHOOTER. Brilliant. And I've seen IN BRUGES. What a disappointment. I always wondered what would possess McDonagah to go for the very played out assassins-out-of-water genre, and sadly, I think he could have done a lot better for someone of his caliber.

I wasnt bothered by the tonal shifts at all but then again I love his plays. I loved the film and the ending really really worked for me especially the last few minutes with Ferrels very sad voice-over.

Best playwright to director transition since David Mamet.

I've never seen one of his plays, nor Six Shooter for that matter, but I cannot tell this was guy was a playwright at all. The camerawork is dynamic and very cinematic, none of the static style I normally associate with them. Good show, sir.

My guess is that In Bruges is a showpiece first film that announces a new and interesting voice in cinema, just like Mamet's House of Games. I'll even go so far as to call it a potential Reservoir Dogs. If McDonagh can build on this one, the sky is the limit. I base this on the plays as much as In Bruges, but the movie is way better than I expected it to be, and did so much right that I can only imagine what McDonagh is gonna do when he really gets his feet under him with film.

On the other hand, I hope he keeps writing plays.

Loved it. I'm not familiar with McDonagh's work, but now I intend on rectifying that. I think this is Ferrell's best work yet. He really balanced the comedy/tragedy well.

I thought it was a lot of fun, but I'm a huge fan of dark comedies. The mood swinging is customary of McDonagh's work (I'm glad people are mentioning the Pillowman....what a fantastic play, and his other plays ain't shabby either).

The tone of his plays are always very dark, very grim, but always very funny. This movie is meant to be taken seriously, I think. But that doesn't mean the characters always take their situations seriously. Other than a couple of really over the top moments, I quite enjoyed it. I liked the Don't Look Now homage, too.

POSSIBLE SPOILER

Odd that it seems like almost all of McDonagh's work deals with a dead kid (or kids). What happened to this guy? I'm going to have to do some research...

I actually felt the tone was consistent throughout. Yes, you've got Colin Farrell karate chopping midgets and Ralph Fiennes saying "fuck" a lot, but I felt there was an undercurrent of sadness and melancholy to the movie that's very quickly established in the first few scenes. Carter Burwell's score helps with that, too.

SPOILERS, HIGHLIGHT TO READ

The scene where he shoots the little boy is a good example of that. What the boy has written is meant to be funny on the surface but then fucking sad as balls when you think about it. "Being sad" killed me.

Also, I don't know if Jeremy has seen this, but this movie owns that Dubliners song in perpetuity.

I just saw this flick last Friday. I was completely caught off-guard by the work of McDonagh and Colin Farrell, who until now never made any lasting impression on me beside being his off-screen antics.

I'll need to see/read The Pillowman, I want more McDonagh movies and Farrell, like Doc stated, needs more comedy work.

BOTTLE!

I like the actors in it

Solid movie, but it comes from two things and two things only in my opinion: the acting, and the dialogue.

The story itself is underwhelming, and the third act, while "fun", is just silly, but in a bad way. The line about the big black retarded girl had me in stitches though. And Gleeson was his usual reliable self. It was better than I expected in a lot of ways, but underwhelming in others.

Loved this one mostly because it reminded me of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I also thought Colin Farrell was perfect casting, as were Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleason. The tragic elements of it also fit well for me.

This was sort of coming out of nowhere a few months ago when the trailer popped up on Apple, but its getting some serious buzz now. I've always liked Farrell, I love Gleeson (more people need to check out Boorman's The General) and Clemence Poesy is goddamn beautiful.

Looking forward to this quite a bit.

Ain't that the truth.

Loved the movie. Loved The Pillowman. Will download Six Shooter. Don't know what else to say.

As of now I like Farrel. I never thought he was all that before but he surprised me in this one. Gleeson is, of course, great but that was expected. But Fiennes not only steals this movie but he takes it home, copies it and sells the copies on street corners to make some extra cash. The looks he gave when he shot Farrel on the barge and in his final scene are awesome.

I enjoyed this film a lot better than I thought I would. It was very funny (especially that bit where the guy is poking Ralph Fiennes in the forehead!). I also loved Colin Farrell

He pauses, knowing he should just hit the cunt... and repeats...

That line cracked me up, and when the guy asks him his name and he replies with

Derek.... perrrrrrrrrrrr.... lerrrrrrrrrr

Great film, one of the unexpected gems of this year.

Really, really, really, loved this film. Loved Fiennes' psychotic questioning over the phone, loved Gleeson look of pure contention on top of the tower, loved Colin Farrell being rat like and awesome, loved the switches from hysterical to incredibly maudlin, and I loved the gratuitous gore.

That bit fucking killed me.

This is a very good movie, and it's equally due to McDonagh's strong writing (both in terms of plotting and dialogue) and his utter confidence as a director. All the actors are tops, but Farrell's silent expressiveness is a blast. (Plus I loved his fascination with midgets, dwarves and little people.) And Clemence Poesy is insanely, insanely cute.

I saw this last weekend. I loved the script and moments of it. The performances are fantastic. Specially Farrel and Fiennes.

I thought the pacing was a bit off. And it dragged a bit in the middle.

But so many glorious moments. The scene at the restaurant, the confession, the whole third act. Glorious.

It made me wonder, what the fuck happened to Colin Farrel?!

This is my favorite movie of the year so far.

This may be my favorite film of the year. So it at an advance screening with a couple Belgians, and they were laughing harder than I was at the jokes at Bruges's expense, cause they say it's true. I'm now determined to visit Bruges at least twice before I kick the bucket.

I endorse this statement; granted, I've only seen four movies that came out this year (this, Redbelt, Indiana Jones, & Iron Man) so far, but still.

Yep, I believe I've seen lots of the notable releases this year, and this remains my favorite.

The midget humor in this is amazing.

EDIT: Also, I think I love Gleeson now thanks to this movie. His brief identity crisis fifteen minutes in caused much moist snorting laughter.