In Bruges

Rating:

* * * *

Verdict:

Fast, furious, four-letter and very funny black comedy.

To say this is not a film for those offended by profanity is to understate the case. To be honest, it's for those who can hear poetry in a two-sentence line of dialogue that contains three occurrences of the most unmentionable four-letter word.

To declare a bias: in my book, the feature debut of Irish playwright McDonagh is bloody hilarious. Sure, there's a bleak, black undertone to the comedy as well - under its noirish exterior, beats the heart of a wistful moral fable, an elegy about mateship and mentoring, love even - but it's also a whip-smart gangster thriller, plotted with precision and a fierce intelligence. At its best, it's like Tarantino with brains, but there's also something of Samuel Beckett or Eugene Ionesco here, an understanding that what's most tragic about life is its endless absurdity.

Farrell and Gleeson play Ray and Ken, a pair of Irish hitmen who are in the Belgian town of the title awaiting instructions from their boss Harry (Fiennes). This is not a task either relishes (the title, which becomes a running gag, is meant to be pronounced with a question mark, in a slightly incredulous, you've-got-to-be-joking tone) and Ray in particular is unamused: "I grew up in Dublin," he tells Ken. "If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn't, so it doesn't."

Thus the film cleverly manages to lampoon the medieval architecture while making it look ravishing and much of the humour flows from the simple fact that two choleric hoods are not at their best mooching around a chocolate-box tourist town with nothing to do.

Yet, just like a tourist attraction, the gangsters are all front. Sadness lurks behind their quick-wittedness. McDonagh hints at it with set-ups lit to recall the vanitas compositions of Flemish masters, and gradually we realise that Ray is carrying a dark grief.

When Harry's instructions come through, they are, to say the least, unexpected. When they don't get carried out, Harry himself turns up - and he's not a happy boy. Do not, whatever you do, let anyone tell you what happens next.

As befits a film by a playwright, it's fill of zinger dialogue, most of which is unprintable. Ray, explaining Purgatory to Ken as they look at a Bosch painting says it's "kind of like the in-betweeny one. You weren't really shit, but you weren't all that great either. Like Tottenham."

And while it delivers a shootout worthy of the best thriller, it's also full of surreal touches that make the climax as funny as it is nail-biting. Sure, the ending is a bit improbable - ballistically and medically - but lighten up. This is a piece of theatre, staged on cobblestone streets: a trio of fine actors at the absolute peak of their game in a film that is at once broad and subtle. It's fabulous entertainment. Just watch out for those rude words.

 Peter Calder

Cast:

Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes

Director:

Martin McDonagh

Running time:

107 mins

Rating:

R16 (violence, offensive language and drug use)

Screening:

Berkeley Botany Downs, Takapuna, and Hibiscus Coast; SkyCity Queen St, St Lukes, Albany, Westcity, and Manukau; Hoyts Sylvia Park; Rialto Newmarket; Matakana