In Bruges.

"In the audaciously violent In Bruges, writer-director Martin McDonagh uses funny and lovable buddy hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) to explore more agonizing questions of sin and redemption, and the shifts in tone are hard, if not impossible, to reconcile," writes David Edelstein in New York. "At the center of the film is the accidental killing of a small boy at prayer, and while McDonagh gives that act its full due (and then some), there's a disconnect between so shattering a tragedy and the fundamentally bogus genre he's working in. For In Bruges to click, McDonagh needed either to get more real or more fake."

Updated through 2/7.

"Melancholic music and a torpid pace don't make In Bruges profound, but they are symptomatic of this phony, pretentious crime film's schizophrenia," writes Nick Schager in Slant.

"No one wants a movie that tiptoes in step with political correctness, yet the willful opposite can be equally noxious, and, as In Bruges barges and blusters its way through dwarf jokes, child-abuse jokes, jokes about fat black women, and moldy old jokes about Americans, it runs the risk of pleasing itself more than its paying viewers," writes Anthony Lane in the New Yorker.

"Ralph Fiennes's arrival in the third act, as a hot-tempered Cockney thug, represents a serious improvement. Fiennes is one of those screen actors - like Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tilda Swinton, Richard Widmark and Ronald Reagan - who are only credible, but unequivocally so, when evil," writes Benjamin Strong in the L Magazine. "Beyond Fiennes, however, In Bruges is remarkable mostly for its lack of originality."

Earlier: Reviews from last month when the film opened Sundance; and David D'Arcy.

Updates, 2/5: "McDonagh's basic ability is undeniable: he writes carefully wrought duets for dialect, accommodates generous space for his actors to build character, and knows how to pack a scene with ballast," writes Nick Pinkerton at indieWIRE. Still: "What the 30s were to the newsman, the 50s the adman, the last fifteen years have been for the killer-for-hire. There are theses to be written to analyze the ubiquity of this figure - in films, television, video games - in the age of global capitalism unbound; I won't attempt one. I only know I've had my fill."

"Tolerably well-crafted, In Bruges is also mighty pleased with itself, and not entirely without reason," writes Ella Taylor in the Voice. That said, "In Bruges may have won McDonagh the opening night at Sundance and a sweet deal with Focus Features, but six months from now, this very minor pleasure will have about as much traction as the misty city in which it's set."

"In Bruges keeps constantly modulating moods, from broad fish-out-of-water comedy to revenge thriller, from soul-searching morality tale to the resolution's near-Boschian horror, which plays like a twisted Belgian version of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now," writes Jürgen Fauth.

"There's a Mametian rat-a-tat to McDonagh's dialogue, but the offbeat humor and the characters' genuine pain and regret feels unique," writes Alonso Duralde for MSNBC.

Updates, 2/6: The film's "finale, which piles one bloody absurd epiphany on top of another almost ad infinitum, is where McDonagh lays all his cards on the table - and his characters are the ones who have to pay up," writes Glenn Kenny. "Viewers might not be entirely convinced that the auteur has actually won the hand. But only the most churlish would not admit that he played a pretty impressive game."

Erica Abeel talks with McDonagh for indieWIRE.

"So, then, In Bruges, a new hit man movie," sighs Robert Cashill. "Neither the best nor the worst of its ilk, it will have to do till the next one comes out, probably in a week or two."

Bilge Ebiri talks with McDonagh for New York's Vulture.

Update, 2/7: "Martin McDonagh's In Bruges comes as close to redeeming Tarantino's inadvertent spawn as possible, even if the goofy self-parody of the Transporter series' self-mocking ethics is still preferable," writes the Reeler. "Like good stand-up comics with mediocre material, his central trio - Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes - bring energy and verve to a film that almost doesn't deserve it."

Posted by dwhudson at February 4, 2008 9:01 AM