This movie is everything I love about movies. It's got great acting, great characters, great story, great dialogue. It's nothing short of amazing.

I haven't seen Farrell in a roll like this before, but he certainly shines. Going from being a brat, to coked up as all hell, to depressed in a matter of minutes and it's hilarious as well as heart breaking.

Gleeson is fantastic in his role too! He plays a perfect mix of cold and calculating, still being sophisticated and also has a conscience of sorts.

Every scene in this movie develops either character or story, and the story unfolds so flawlessly with every passing scene. Going from thinking Ray is just being an arrogant brat to realizing what he has done and why he's acting like he is is a truly fascinating journey, and you can't quite tell whether to laugh or be upset by it, sometimes doing a bit of both at once.

The dialogues and delivery are truly perfect, and it leaves us with so many quotable lines about topics from saving someone you were going to kill from suicide and having a discussion with him about it afterwards to race wars with midgets. Sorry, "Dwarves".

The wife telling Harry to bring "the fellas" as he leaves and him apologizing for calling her an inanimate object because he was upset brings so much depth to characters and their relationship only from a minute-long scene. True magic with regards to acting and dialogue. This is why dialogue and acting is so important. It brings us closer to the person behind the character and gives the story immensely more depth and excitement.

A cinematic masterpiece!

What drove me to seeing 'In Bruges' in the first place was primarily great actors like Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, and also for the concept and Bruges itself.

'In Bruges' is definitely not for all tastes, one can say that for a lot of films but 'In Bruges' is one of the more extreme examples. It is very foul mouthed with an extreme profanity laden script, is very uncompromisingly violent and its political incorrectness will put the easily offended and the faint hearted off. Three reasons not to see it if all this bothers you. It didn't bother me much though (having seen plenty of films with those approaches that still manage to be great). Neither did on the most part the ridiculousness that 'In Bruges' has been criticised for.

What is meant by "on the most part"? 'In Bruges' weakest element, from a storytelling standpoint and for the film in general, is the ending. This to me was the only part of the film that went over the top on the ridiculousness to overblown proportions, and it just felt contrived and running out of ideas in feel.

Carter Burwell's music score is a well written and quite lovely one on its own. Within the film and its mood though, it didn't fit however and juxtaposes too much in terms of tone.

However, the performances are very good, excellent in the case of Gleeson (as always) and Fiennes having tons of fun as his sinister character. Wasn't expecting acting this good from Farrell, this is the best he's ever been and he is successful in providing an interesting character that was intended to be morally complex and not likeable. It's the relationship between Farrell and Gleeson that drives the story and drama, it was essential to the film's success and manages to be entertaining, affecting and thought-provoking,

Photography is both gritty and beautiful, with a clear sense of style and atmosphere. Bruges not just looks wonderful, it also is treated like a character of its own quite rightly.

Similarly successful is the script, which is surprisingly intelligent with a strong balance with thought-provoking philosophical musings, very funny black comedy and character moral complexity (not making the characters likeable but it was clear early on that the intent was for them never to be so) . The story absorbs and entertains, with the brutal holds no prisoners violence not feeling gratuitous, the central relationship being beautifully written and the despair and redemptions themes being surprisingly poignant.

Overall, very good if understandably polarising. 8/10 Bethany Cox

In Bruges is the story of two British hitmen lying low in Bruges, Belgium after an assassination goes wrong. This movie is a perfect balance of comedy and depression. Martin Mcdonough seamlessly transitions from heavy subjects like child murder, and suicide, to goofs and gags and fat Americans. Several scenes are simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. There is also a masterful handling of reincorporation that is quite reminiscent of Hot Fuzz. There were several scenes in this movie that seemed to just be one-off jokes, but eventually affected the plot and characters in profound ways later on. The characters were all very distinct and fleshed out, and it's been a long time since I genuinely cared about fictional people so much. The plot is absolutely one hundred percent pitch perfect. It is meticulously balanced on the scale of unpredictability and poetic beauty. On the far left of this scale lies something like Game of Thrones, where main characters are killed left and right with no satisfying conclusion to their arch. On the far right is Star Wars, where the story is neat and satisfying, but anyone who has seen a movie in their life knows exactly what will happen ten minutes in. In Bruges is somehow far left and far right at the same time. The plot twists and turns in unexpected ways, and it doesn't stop until the very end. Yet, in the midst of this untidy anarchistic plot, a clear lesson and meaning still arises.