IN BRUGES

MOVIE REVIEW

Okay, if you're a movie buff, which I'm not, your gasping over the fact that I just watched "IN BRUGES" for the first time, this Labor Day weekend. Why now? Because a lot of screenwriters and blogs have it referenced, but mainly the fact that my Lovely Wife had recorded it and we needed something to watch.

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, "In Bruges" is about two hit men who are sent to, blah, blah... you're not reading because you've already seen it, right? I knew that. Okay, then onto the review.

The medieval city, Bruges, Belgium, looks good, with its stonework, stucco, iron windows and all. Without dialogue I still would've watched, it would have been just another one of those PBS travel shows, which I happen to love.

The acting was good but I have to admit, Colin Farrell was not convincing me in the beginning, it seemed a bit too much like acting. He grew into it though.

As for the script itself, early on Brendan Gleeson climbs a medieval tower to view the city. When he gets to the top, all alone, he looks down and it's quite like a view onto a HO scale trainset. He says, out loud, all alone, "I like this place."

Are you kidding me? People don't do that. Now, it's kind of like the tree falling in the woods if there are no people there, does it make a sound? Well, I'm a tree in this case, and I've been to the top of a ton of towers throughout Europe, sometimes alone, and I never once said, out loud, "I like this place". It should have been voiced over or left out entirely.

Why is it a big deal? Credibility. They're trying to lure me in during the first thirty minutes and Colin is acting fake-twitchy and Brendan is on a tower speaking out loud to himself? Not in MY script. Like they say, "gain the trust of your audience in ACT I and they will believe you throughout the rest of the film".

Other than that, it was good, and credible, so I got over it. McDonagh razzes americans, especially fat americans, quite a bit, which is good. You'll never fully get his pokes at the Belgians, or americans, unless you've spent a fair amount of time in Europe. Something like "Bruges is beautiful, too bad it's in Belgium".

Good stuff, to learn more, travel to Belgium, NOT!