In Bruges (2008): Movie Review & Picture Gallery

“In Bruges” is itself a goof, both diverting and forgettable. Despite the guns, genre posturing and self-consciously naughty shocks (jokes about racist dwarfs and fat Americans) it’s also unmistakably sincere. The writing sounds like the handiwork of a very clever young filmmaking student with a fondness for Sartre and Tarantino, though here the 30-something Mr. McDonagh only name-drops Nicholas Roeg and “Touch of Evil”. These are solid allusions, certainly, yet like that 15th-century painting of the unfortunate prisoner being flayed alive — which suggests that Mr. McDonagh means to say something about the spectacle of violence — they don’t add up to anything. He talks a blue streak beautifully, but he has yet to find the nuance and poetry that make his red images signify with commensurate sizzle and pop.