Director: Martin McDonagh
107 minutes 18 2008
Second Sight
Blu-ray region B
[Released 19th August]
Rating: 10/10
Review by J.C Hartley
This
is a thoroughly brilliant British gangster flick which can be watched in
back-to-back viewings with no drop-off in enjoyment. First-time hit-man Ray
(Colin Farrell, Minority Report)
bungles his debut, and is sent to Bruges with minder Ken (Brendan Gleeson, Beowulf) because boss Harry Waters
(Ralph Fiennes, Harry Potter) had
happy memories of a childhood trip there, and he wants Ray to have a nice
little break in a magical place before Ken rubs him out.
Ray
hates Bruges with a vengeance and anyway is wracked with suicidal guilt over
the outcome of the botched hit, which resulted in the death of a child. Ken is
enchanted with the medieval charm of Bruges and takes the opportunity for a bit
of cultural tourism. Ray’s life begins to turn around when he meets the beautiful
Chloe (Clemence Poesy, Harry Potter),
who is taking a break from rolling tourists with her sociopathic sometime
boyfriend Eirik to deal drugs to the crew of a feature film being shot in the
city. Any chance of redemption for Ray is foiled when his escape from the city
is confounded and Harry travels over in person to tidy things up.
The
film is wonderfully but gently allusive to both theatrical and cinematic
traditions. The first port of call would be Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, as Ken and Ray wait for Harry’s phone call, but
there are clear links to the two manipulated killers in the late Harold Pinter’s
The Dumb Waiter, which owes its own
debt to Beckett. Some commentators have compared Fiennes’ portrayal of Harry
with Ben Kingsley’s monstrous Don from Sexy
Beast, but the part is in a tradition of south London hoodlums that
stretches back to Johnny Shannon’s Harry Flowers in Performance. When the wounded Ray stumbles into a dream sequence,
drawing on imagery from Bosch, being shot for the film-within-a-film, the first
impression as the snowflakes drift down into the square is of James Mason as
Johnny McQueen cornered by the authorities in Odd Man Out.
None
of the above references are hammered into the viewer but are subliminally
present for anyone with an abiding interest in the theatre and film. Likewise,
the themes surrounding childhood, and the treatment of children, colour the
behaviour of the characters. Ray’s target in the disastrous hit was a Catholic
priest: “Harry Waters says hello!” The child accidentally shot by Ray, while in
prayer, was clutching a piece of paper apparently listing the failings he was
seeking forgiveness for, like ‘being sad’, and ‘being moody’. The viewer
wonders what a priest might have done to incur the murderous wrath of a
gangster, but with the child’s presence, Harry’s views on children and sense of
obligation, and he is revealed to have killed the killer of Ken’s wife, suggest
a scenario. Ken says to Ray that although he killed the little boy he might
have saved the next one, but Ray fails to pick up on the allusion pointing out
that if he were to become a doctor he would need exams. There is a link back to
Beckett’s All That Fall where Dan,
who may in fact have given way to murderous impulses, asks, “Did you ever wish
to kill a child.”
References
to Don’t Look Now recall the child’s
death at the start of that film, which leads the parents to seek escape and
distraction in Venice. On his date with Chloe, Ray makes a tasteless joke about
the child abuse cases in Belgium. Chloe chides him revealing that she knew one
of the victims, before relenting and saying she did this to discomfort Ray who,
along with us, is not entirely convinced. Ray himself often behaves like a
spoiled child, with Ken is like his big brother or else a father-figure. There
is a beautifully observed scene with Ray preparing for his date with Chloe, and
then presenting himself for Ken’s approval.
Above
all this film is a comedy but one in which the laugh-out-loud moments are
modulated by the darker comedy of Beckett, Pinter, and Chekhov. Some critics
have bemoaned the action finale where Harry goes on a shooting-spree in the
streets of Bruges, but that violent conclusion is inevitable from the earliest
introduction of Harry’s character, “Don’t be stupid. This is the shoot-out.”
Equally, locked into his exaggerated sense of what is right, when Harry shoots
Jimmy the dwarf actor and mistakes the corpse for that of a child, his next
action is inescapable. Whatever the irony of Ray attempting to tell Harry that
what he has done is alright, and that his victim, although an innocent
bystander, is really an adult. Despite the telegraphing of the ordinance-heavy
finale, that’s beautifully shot nevertheless, the final moments of the film,
and Ray’s dying thoughts on hell and Bruges, are priceless.
Limited
edition extras:
- Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-winning short film Six Shooter in HD
- Shoot First, Sightsee Later - a new interview with director of photography Eigil Bryld
- Finding The Rhythm - a new interview with editor Jon Gregory
- Finding Bruges - a new interview with production designer Michael Carlin
- The Alcove Guy - a new interview with actor Eric Godon
- When In Bruges - interviews with cast and crew
- Strange Bruges - interviews with cast and crew
- Deleted scenes
- Boat trip around Bruges
- Gag reel
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