The Skinny:
After a particularly tough hit, two assassins cool off in the little town of Bruges.

The Good:
Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound like a very interesting movie based on my description - and that’s what I was thinking too. However, I was pleasantly surprised that this film had a good mix of action, drama and comedy - not a combo that gets successfully pulled off very often.

But the biggest surprise for me was Colin Farrell. I’ve never bought into his hype as an actor, and frankly, I haven’t enjoyed a single film of his - particularly his mumbling mulletaciousness in Miami Vice or the soul-numbing touching and twirling in The New World. But here, Colin shows some real energy, humor, and likability that plays great against his counterpart, Brendan Gleeson. Ralph Fiennes is also entertaining as their boss who has an affection for spouting profanities and losing his temper.

Along with the acting, I liked the story because it was not at all what I expected it to be. Now I know that we should say that about every movie, right? But too many times we watch movies and within about 15 minutes, we kind of know roughly what to expect. That’s not the case here. I won’t go into detail, but let me just say that I never expected to be so interested in events involving hitmen, midgets, movie sets and shoot-outs.

The Bad:
Unfortunately, I think the movie really falls apart at the end. The big action scene that the film builds up to goes on for way too long, and turns into a Wile E. Coyote chase - except not as interesting. Then there is a moment where all credibility for the movie was flushed down the pooper for me: a character suffers an injury that would absolutely, positively, without a doubt have killed him. But the character lives long enough to raise his head, look around, and even talk. Now I know movies aren’t supposed to be real, but when the story has followed mostly “real world” rules for its whole run time and then pulls a move like this, I feel cheated.

The Ugly:
The aforementioned fatal injury. That guy will certainly never dance again.

The Bottom Line:
I really, really liked about 70% of the movie, but the taste of the crappy 30% is still in my mouth.

Score:

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