In Bruges, 2008.
Directed by Martin McDonagh.
Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy, and Jérémie Renier.
SYNOPSIS:
Martin McDonagh’s excellent hitman character study In Bruges arrives again on Blu-ray sporting a new 4K transfer and a big batch of bonus features that were ported over from prior editions. I believe many of the extras were originally found in non-Region A releases, so if you’re a fan in the US, you may want to scoop this up.
Revisiting In Bruges for the first time in many years, one thing that struck me about it is that I can’t imagine a movie like it being released to theaters today. A character study featuring hitmen in hiding would probably end up made for a streaming service, where it would compete with a multitude of similar projects and the filmmakers would hope that some social media-driven word-of-mouth could help it rise above the rest.
If you haven’t seen it before, he’s a rundown of the plot: Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) are a pair of Irish hitmen who have been sent to Bruges, a city in Belgium, by their British boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes). There was an unfortunate outcome from Ray’s first hit, and it violated one of Harry’s core tenets.
Honor among mobsters may seem like a paradox, but I can appreciate Harry’s point-of-view, which shares the same kind of “We don’t cross this line” philosophy that someone like Don Corleone of The Godfather espouses. In addition, it turns out that Harry’s order for Ken to kill Ray violates one of the veteran hitman’s own principles; when Ken refuses to carry it out, Harry heads to Bruges to put his house in order.
In Bruges is the kind of movie that I like to view, in baseball terms, as a nice double. It’s not flashy, and it doesn’t rely on any major set pieces, but it’s an enjoyable cat-and-mouse story rife with religious undertones (some more overt than others) and philosophical questions of how one adheres to a code of honor even when engaging in illegal conduct.
Kino Lorber commissioned a new 4K master that was color graded and approved by cinematographer Eigil Bryld, issuing this new version of the film on 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray. They sent a copy of the latter to me for review, and I can say that In Bruges looks excellent on Blu-ray, so I’d imagine the 4K is even better. I haven’t owned the film on disc before, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it looked good to me. A character-driven story like this one isn’t necessarily one that you’ll use to show off a high-end 4K setup, and that’s okay — not every movie needs to be a CGI extravaganza.
As far as the extras on this platter go, I think everything found here was ported over from a previous release, but I’m not 100% sure. Here’s what you’ll find:
• Strange Bruges (7.75 minutes): Writer and director Martin McDonagh and the cast talk about the city where all the action takes place (except for a flashback and a scene in Harry’s London home). Harry likens it to a fairytale city, a characterization that Ken appreciates but Ray struggles to come around on, and that’s the subject of this discussion. Personally, I’d love to visit Bruges some day.
• When in Bruges (14.5 minutes): This is another look at the city through the lens of a visit McDonagh made to Bruges several years before writing the film. He says he found it beautiful but was also bored after a few hours of walking around, and he split those two perspectives into Ken and Ray’s characters.
• Fucking Bruges (1.5 minutes): In case you’re wondering how often the city comes up in dialogue during the story, this is a montage of all those moments, along with every instance of the word “fucking,” both alone and with other, shall we say, colorful words. (And if you’re wondering how to pronounce the name, don’t worry: it’s said in the first few lines of dialogue, so you can say it correctly if anyone comes in the room and asks what you’re watching.)
• A Boat Trip Around Bruges (6 minutes): Like Venice, Bruges has a lot of waterways, and this quick featurette takes you on a tour along them, with text scrolling across the screen that explains the history of a city founded in 1128. I love the deep history of many European cities, which is another reason for me to want to visit Bruges.
• Deleted and extended scenes (19 minutes): Much of this consists of little character moments between Ken and Ray which were presumably excised to tighten the narrative. Unfortunately, there’s no intro or commentary that explains why these bits were cut, and the video quality wasn’t upgraded from the DVD days, so the footage plays in a window box.
• EPK B-Roll (12.5 minutes): This is a batch of “fly on the wall” onset footage from the creation of the electronic press kit (EPK) when the film originally came out on home video.
• EPK Interviews (16 minutes): Farrell, Gleeson, and Fiennes, along with fellow cast members Clémence Poésy, Thekla Reuten, and Jordan Prentice, join McDonagh and producer Graham Broadbent for a series of thoughts on the film. I assume this is all footage that didn’t fit in the featurettes above.
A gag reel and the film’s trailer in German and English round out the platter. The Blu-ray case, which features reversible cover art, comes in a cardboard slipcase.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
Originally published September 27, 2022. Updated December 10, 2022.
