Movie Monday #16: The Tournament

"Is it my accent or something?"

--Kelly Hu as Lai Lai Zhen, The Tournament

I’m a sucker for an assassin movie due to my formative teenage years being spent watching John Woo’s Hong Kong classics (A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard Boiled are his three best).  The problem these days is making your average assassin movie interesting enough to pick up off the movie shelf, simply because there are so damn many of them.  I had the pleasure of taking in an assassin film that turned the whole genre into a giant kill-or-be-killed tournament, with plenty of action and thrills to spare.  I’m talking about the Scott Mann film The Tournament.

The story of this film is that every seven years, an unsuspecting town is selected as the battleground for the top thirty assassins in the world.  The challenge is to be the last one standing, winning the large cash prize and the prestige of being the world’s top killer.  The entire contest is viewed through closed-circuit television by a group of mysterious, rich men, who bet on the contestants like a sporting event.  This whole sha-bang is organized by Powers, played to the hilt by Liam Cunningham, a man whose face I’d never seen before but whose voice I’d definitely heard on commercials and from videogame and animation voice-overs.

When the film opens, Joshua Harlowe (Ving Rhames) is participating in the last contest, seven years ago.  He’s out of bullets in his gun, has no other weapons to speak of, and is up against a machine-gun-toting maniac who isn’t taking kindly to Harlowe’s announcement that he’s retiring from the business.  In a bit of trickery, Harlowe pulls off the victory, killing this maniac with some kind of pressurized air gun, blasting his head to pieces.  I should note that this movie is not for the squeamish--there are plenty of body parts and organs flying around and detonating spectacularly.  This may sound like a bad thing, but it really doesn’t detract from the viewing--it adds a dimension of grim reality to the competition that’s about to take place.

Flash-forward seven years, and it’s time for a new tournament.  Enter Lai Lai Zhen (Kelly Hu in a smoking hot role), a Chinese assassin who arrives at her hotel, wakes up the next morning a little groggy from being implanted with a tracking device, and gets a major wake-up call when one of these hitmen attacks her, pretending to be room service.  After some high karate on Lai Lai’s part, she gets her first kill, and she moves up the leader board.

To my surprise, the film proceeds to develop a side story about Father Macavoy (Robert Carlyle), an alcoholic Catholic priest whose faith is a mite weak.  When he enters a diner and has breakfast, one of these ‘contestants’ (the incredible Sebastian Foucan, the inventor of Parcour) enters as well, cuts out his tracking device, and drops it in Father Macavoy’s coffee.  Now, everyone thinks Father Macavoy is that contestant, and this unsuspecting priest has entered the tournament.

Lai Lai Zhen tracks Macavoy down, thinking he’s the Parcour guy, and gets assaulted by a Russian Special Forces maniac who was pulling off incredible martial arts moves without wires.  The only other person I know who has done moves like this without the aid of any apparatus is Matt Mullins (Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight), so this was a welcome surprise.  Lai Lai almost loses this battle, if not for some quick thinking on her part, as she pulls one of the pins on a grenade on the Russian guy’s combat vest (while giving him the finger, no less).

After determining that Father Macavoy is not a willing participant, Lai Lai calls Powers on the emergency line, informing him of this situation.  He sees this as a great betting opportunity for his assembly of mysterious, rich pals and tells her that he’d better start killing, or else he’ll end up dead too...and puts the priest up on the leader board, with the odds of five hundred to one.

Shortly thereafter, Harlowe appears on the grid--seems someone came after him in his Miami home and killed his wife.  He’s come back to the tournament for revenge, because he has information that his wife’s killer is one of the contestants.  So what does he do?  He kills the film’s writer, Nick Rowntree, who cameos for about five or six lines as one of these assassins.  Well, they’re always saying that directors want to kill the writers, so why not do it through the magic of film?

As Harlowe keeps gathering information through each person he kills, Lai Lai and Father Macavoy are in survival mode--she’s trying to keep him alive while avoiding his constant question of “Why are you here?”  When they finally acquire a car, Lai Lai drives as far as she can out of the city, so the tracker won’t be as effective.  Meanwhile, Harlowe has acquired a tanker truck and is following Lai Lai’s tracker.  Everything is set for the final showdown, and what a showdown it is.

It’s pretty clear at this point that I can’t say enough about this movie, because it reminds me of classic 1980’s action films, but done one notch better.  Kelly Hu, as previously mentioned, is absolutely gorgeous (as always) and is smoking hot whether she’s beating the crap out of someone with martial arts or blasting someone with a gun in each hand (which was probably paying homage to John Woo in some way).  Robert Carlyle is perfectly cast as Father Macavoy, a man who has lost his church, his congregation, and his will to live, and finds it all again through the help of Lai Lai.

The only part I didn’t really understand was Ving Rhames as Harlowe.  Rhames plays this part like he’s a guest star in a TV movie, and his part is written in that fashion, even though he should have been the main character.  He seemed distant and out-of-place throughout the entire film, and his talents seem wasted on such a small part as this.

Despite this semi-major flaw in the film, everyone else is also perfectly cast--the hitmen look and sound like hitmen, the bystanders look and sound like bystanders, and the hilarious tech guys who run the closed-circuit cameras sound like total neurotic geeks who should spend more time outside.

The action in this movie is incredible--lots of gunfights, lots of chases, lots of martial arts--and none of it seems forced or just for the sake of having it.  Once you have established the parameters of the world this movie operates in (sort-of a “Pay-Per-View” tournament/sporting event thing), everything else falls into place, and that was a very nice thing to see.

Style-wise, the movie is shot in very drab surroundings with very dark, drab colors, adding to the dark, internal struggles of the three main characters...and let’s just face it, folks--assassins killing each other in a competition every seven years for a cash prize is a pretty dark thing.

The Tournament is a film that delivers on all fronts--action, plot, and characters.  It lays down some commentary about how the world sensationalizes sporting events, and that maybe something like this assassin tourney is where we’re heading.  Luckily, it doesn’t get too bogged down in that and never forgets what it is--a damn good action movie.  If you’re looking for a great action-thriller to add to your collection, then look no further than The Tournament.

Movie Monday #14: Sleuth

Most of you who read this blog have gotten to know my viewing habits fairly well.  I tend to like pretty much whatever I watch, since I don't go out of my way to watch movies I'll hate.  But recently I came across a movie that made me squirm in my seat, and it wasn't from horrific special effects, either.  It was the 2007 remake of Sleuth, starring Jude Law and Michael Caine.  I picked it up for $2.50 and, as you'll find out, that's about all it was worth.

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"Do you fancy me?"

Jude Law as Milo Tindle, Sleuth

I just came up with a new t-shirt slogan that would best describe this blog--“I came.  I saw.  I bought cheap movies.”  I wish I had a shirt like that, because it would describe my experience at the Fairchance Pharmacy in Fairchance, PA, not so far from my hometown of Uniontown, PA, where I spent some time picking up, what else, cheap movies.


The Fairchance Pharmacy actually has a video rental joint inside of it, and they do a good business in new and used merchandise.  I had a ball looking through their used items, and picked up four movies that day, all of which will be the subject of later reviews.  One of these films, Sleuth, caught my eye because it only had two actors in the entire film--Michael Caine and Jude Law.  Let’s dive in and see what they have to offer us.

The movie opens with a montage of surveillance camera footage as a car pulls up to a recently remodeled English manor.  Andrew Wyke (Caine) is the owner of this manor; he’s a world-famous crime writer who recently separated from his wife.  Milo Tindle (Law) is his recently-arrived guest, and the man currently sleeping with Andrew’s wife.  At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of this film, because it’s basically about nothing for a good ten minutes...until Andrew brings up the subject of his wife, and how Milo has come to discuss a divorce settlement with him.

But instead of a divorce settlement, Andrew comes up with this grand scheme to have Milo “rob” him of precious jewels that are in his bedroom safe.  After almost flubbing this, Milo realizes that Andrew isn’t playing a game anymore -- he’s not going to give his wife a divorce, and the gun he’s pointing at Milo has a live round in it, ready to end his life.  And just when Andrew pulls the trigger--


We cut away to a car speeding toward the manor.  This is Inspector Black of New Scotland Yard, asking Andrew about the murder of Milo Tindle.  Andrew becomes uncomfortable as this inspector starts to gain the upper hand on him--until it’s revealed that Inspector Black and Milo Tindle are the same person.  Now that that’s settled, the movie moves into its third act, much like the play it was based on, to which I can only say this: it was wicked and rather unsettling.

In fact, this whole movie is unsettling.  There’s something vaguely homosexual going on between Andrew and Milo, and it only intensifies in the third act.  Maybe I’m not as open-minded as I should be, but I don’t agree with that lifestyle, and I sure didn’t want to see Jude Law kiss Michael Caine, even if it was slightly off-camera.  Aside from their vague homosexuality, Caine and Law deliver dynamite performances that draw you in and never let you go.  That’s the problem with Sleuth--you know you shouldn’t be watching a movie this bad, but you can’t stop watching it because the actors in it are doing a damn good job at keeping this sinking ship alive.  

The direction by Kenneth Branagh, a director that is described on the back of the DVD case as “critically-acclaimed,” was nothing but static shots accented with blue and purple lighting inside Andrew’s manor.  One shot that stood out to me as being particularly horrible was one spying on the two characters through window blinds.  I couldn’t make out what was going on, and this shot just held and held and held on those freaking blinds.
 
This is another quibble I have with independent film, especially British “indie” film--some of these movies aren’t about anything worth watching, and this was one of those.  Aside from the stellar acting, poor direction, and the almost non-existent music, the only redeeming quality this film had was the production design, which was by a chap named Tim Harvey.  His design for the remodeled manor was superb, even including a little two-person elevator that rose to Andrew’s bedroom on the second floor.  The lighting by Haris Zambarloukos was also noteworthy.
 
Unfortunately, lighting and production design do not a movie make, and even when you’ve got star power like Michael Caine and Jude Law, two fine actors in their own rights, the boat is going to sink when the captain relies on the ping-pong close-up to get his point across.  The static, almost clinical way that Kenneth Branagh directed this film just killed any potential it had at being a good movie.
 
So do yourself a favor--even if you see this one in the bargain bin at two dollars and fifty cents, which was where I found it, let this review be your guide and just stay away from this stinker.  Or, if you actually like bad movies, you can do what my friend Mindy does and make a “Bad Movie Night” out of it with your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or just a friend or two.  

Anything’s better than taking this movie seriously, because it doesn’t even deserve that.

Movie Monday #11: Give 'Em Hell Malone

Last Friday I stopped by Blockbuster Video at Windsor Commons in Red Lion, PA, looking for something different to add to my movie collection.  I found Give 'Em Hell Malone, an action film by Russell Mulcahy (of Highlander fame) that I enjoyed immensly.  I payed $9.99 for a previously viewed copy that didn't have a single scratch, fingerprint, or mark on it, so I had to ask myself--was the movie so bad that nobody was watching it?  Let's find out!

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“In my world, you have to knife before you’re punched and shoot before you’re knifed, because there’s one golden rule that can never be broken -- once you’re dead, you stay that way.”


--Thomas Jane as Malone, Give ‘Em Hell Malone

Along with all the other things I love about movies, I love it when a movie pays homage to film noir and gangster-era themes. My favorite movie of all time, L.A. Confidential, pays homage to hardboiled detectives and crime novels of the 1940’s and 1950’s, which are quickly becoming the only books I read.

So when a movie comes along that pays homage to film noir, hardboiled crime fiction, and yet creates something new entirely, what do you expect me to do? Sit on my hands and let it slip under the radar? To be truthful, I almost did, if it weren’t for a recent trip to Blockbuster Video at Windsor Commons in Red Lion, PA, where I found Give ‘Em Hell Malone, previously viewed, for ten bucks.

The film opens with a massive, visceral shootout between Malone and at least twelve guys in an empty hotel. Malone (Thomas Jane) narrates over this with wry, period-appropriate dialogue, informing us of his personal opinion of getting shot at, bullets (and their many uses), thugs, and some vital personal information.

Malone has been hired to retrieve a case from the safe in the hotel. After getting shot, having the case stolen from him by a thug named Pencil Stache, chasing this guy down in his resto-rod, shooting out his tires with a shotgun, and letting Pencil’s van smash through several parked cars, Malone visits his mother, Gloria, at the retirement home.

Apparently Malone only visits her when he’s been shot, stabbed, or is in desperate need of medical attention. Gloria doesn’t use anesthesia, so Malone’s screaming can be heard inside (and outside) the nursing home. After getting fixed up, Malone opens the case and finds a blue toy elephant inside.

Returning to his handler’s home with an empty case, Malone wants to know who his client was. Enter Evelyn (Elsa Pataky), a femme fatale in a red coat who claims she must trade the case and its contents for her brother, Sam, or he will die.

And to top everything off, we have Boulder (Ving Rhames), a tough-as-nails hood working for Whitmore (Gregory Harrison), the crime boss of this city. Boulder needs Whitmore’s money to keep his wife’s life-sustaining equipment running, so Boulder goes to track down Malone and get the case back, with a little help from the psychopathic pyromaniac Matchstick (Doug Hutchison).

Along the way, Matchstick sets things on fire, Malone’s mom gets drunk, Evelyn seduces Malone, and Malone runs out of bullets (a rare thing for an action movie). There’s plenty of humor, plenty of action, plenty of surprises, and plenty of nods to the hardboiled heroes of yesteryear to keep any movie fan pleased.

Thomas Jane was born to play Malone. The cadence in his voice, his swagger, the way he uses that huge revolver--everything about Malone--seems effortless for Jane. He makes these kinds of parts look easy. He also makes you cheer for Malone, laugh with Malone, and feel sorry for Malone, sometimes all at once. If there were ever a guy to recreate Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, it would be Thomas Jane.

Elsa Pataky is smoking hot as Evelyn, the woman who twists Malone from love to hate and back again. The shower scene in the motel room (where Malone can see half of her taking a shower in the bathroom mirror) stood out to me as being very Raymond Chandler and Donald Westlake, and her whole attitude and demeanor were dead on the money for a film with hardboiled themes. Any actress can be easy on the eyes, but it helps if you’ve got the talent to back it up. Pataky is the full package.

Ving Rhames showed flashes of his brief but memorable turn as Kojak in this film. Boulder is a man who used to work with Malone, but turned to a life of crime in order to keep his dying wife alive. Repeating throughout the movie “She’s gonna pull through” to almost every character, Rhames shows that this is a guy who doesn’t really believe in what he’s doing anymore. Does he make the right choice come the end of the film? I’ll leave that for you to decide, but you’re in for a treat with Rhames’s deadpan humor and gangster swagger whenever he steps on screen.

Writer Mark Hosack scribed a terrific script that hits all the action-lover and noir-lover notes just right. Director Russell Mulcahy (of Highlander and Resident Evil fame) put his years of experience to good use in Give ‘Em Hell Malone, pulling off some great stunts, lighting, sets, and special effects on a low budget. Cinematographer Jonathan Hall did a terrific job as well, getting all the film noir trademarks in there--silhouettes, slat lighting, and shadows.

The music, however, is the real treat in this film. The musical score by David Williams features a slow, saxophone love theme that evokes shades of the opening credit music to Basic Instinct and Body Heat, but he didn’t stop there. He added synthesizers, mini-moogs, and crazy drum beats to the action and chase scenes to show the modern side of the production, while keeping the old film noir sound. I’ve never heard music done like that before, and Williams is now my favorite movie composer because of it. Watch out for this guy, folks--he’s going to go places.

So, with all of this going right for Give ‘Em Hell, Malone, what could possibly be wrong with it? Not much, but I did find it a little confusing near the end of what screenwriters call Act Two (the middle section of the film), because there were one or two twists that twisted a bit too fast. You also have to take into account that this is a Russell Mulcahy film, and that means logic can sometimes go out the window.

Other than those two quibbles, I enjoyed Give ‘Em Hell Malone a ton. It had laughs, action, and suspense, and the whole homage to the hardboiled era only enhanced the fun factor for me. This was worth every penny of the ten dollars I spent on it, and I’m looking into some of the other titles that its distributor, National Entertainment Media, has available. I wish they made more movies like this and in this style, but for now, I will sit back and watch Give ‘Em Hell Malone till they discover a way to bring Chandler and Westlake back to life...and that could be a while.

Movie Monday #10: Night Train

Last Friday I spent some time looking through the bins at Tom's Music Trade for some cheap movies to add to my collection.  One of the movies I ran across was Night Train, M. Brian King's 2008 noir mystery vehicle, which I snagged for $1.99.  The original Blockbuster Video price tag was still on the case, which listed the price as $14.99.  Sure, I got the movie for a song...but was it worth it?

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“Who hasn’t chopped up a corpse from time to time?”

--Steve Zahn as Pete, Night Train

The concept of a movie on a train has been done to death.

There. I said it. I got it off my chest.

But there hasn’t been a movie on a train in a long time, and the genre seems to have disappeared altogether from Hollywood. So when an independent thriller comes along that takes place on a train traveling to nowhere on Christmas Eve, I was intrigued...and now that I’ve seen Night Train, I can say that the genre hasn’t been done like this in a long time.

Miles (Danny Glover) is a veteran train conductor who merely wants to get home to his ailing wife by Christmas morning. At the first stop for his train, a strange man comes on board carrying a Christmas present. He takes a seat in the rear car, where washed-up salesman Pete (Steve Zahn) and pre-med student Chloe (Leelee Sobieski) are trying not to be weirded out by the new guy.

As the train gets under way, Miles stops by the rear car to see the stranger again. It seems the guy didn’t pay for a ticket, but that’s not going to be a problem--he’s dead. As Miles, Pete, and Chloe investigate this incident, Pete opens the Christmas present and finds a small, wooden box inside...and inside the box are five million dollars worth of white diamonds.

Miles thinks they should report the dead man to the authorities. Pete thinks they shouldn’t. Chloe points out that they can dump the stranger’s body from the train and into an upcoming river without anyone being the wiser...and soon, everything starts to snowball out of control as Chloe gets more and more manipulative, Miles starts to regret that he ever found the box, and Pete is too scared to think straight, which all leads to a smashing climax aboard the runaway train.

Danny Glover is someone who, after Lethal Weapon was said and done with, has really supported the independent film community with his work. He gives a performance here that’s as solid as I’ve ever seen from him. Everything about the character of Miles--his gait, his limp, his voice, and the way greed twists at his heart--really made me admire Glover as a terrific actor, and not just a straight man to Mel Gibson.

Leelee Sobieski is something of an enigma to me. I’d only seen her in Joyride before this, and while I thought she was gorgeous and definitely had talent, I didn’t know what else she brought to the table. Miss Sobieski proves that she has the acting chops to compete with some of the best out there in Night Train. Her turn as the manipulative and slightly psychotic Chloe is one of the better and more realistic femme fatale portrayals I’ve seen in recent years, and the more horror-oriented elements of the film played to her strengths quite well. I’ll be looking for more of her work from now on.

Steve Zahn (who co-starred with Sobieski in Joyride) has been redefining himself lately as someone who can take on dramatic roles (see his turn in A Perfect Getaway for evidence of this) as well as comedic ones. His character, Pete, slowly develops over the period of the film into the audience’s guilty conscience, since he’s the one who wants to run away with the box and never come back, and ends up getting killed by his own greed. A good lesson to be learned by anyone who wants to pursue a life of crime, and a lesson well-acted by Steve Zahn.

Writer/director M. Brian King confesses a childhood love for trains in an interview on the DVD, and it shows in every frame of Night Train. The entire movie takes place on the train (say for the last few minutes), and while the exterior train shots were all done with CGI, that didn’t seem to bother me very much--King clearly knew how he wanted his film to look, to sound, and to feel, and he brought every bit of that to the table.

Production Designer John Welbanks is the kind of guy I’d hire if I were making a movie. He had to design a wooden six-car train setup inside a studio in Yugoslavia and get it done on a budget. The results speak for themselves. The train itself looks like an old model that’s ready for retirement. The interior has a 40’s-style wood finish. There are Christmas decorations and twinkle lights everywhere. And the best part of it all was the baggage cart, a cold, wrought-iron place where Chloe “improvises” with how to dispose of the dead stranger. Kudos to John for creating a gorgeous and believable backdrop for the film to take place in.

My only real complaint about the film was the lighting by Christopher Popp. I don’t know if it was a style choice or if it was M. Brian King’s choice, but for the majority of the movie, everything is fully lit, all the time. I realize it takes place on a train, and that trains are fully lit the majority of the time, but a little mood lighting wouldn’t have hurt in certain spots. The only real lighting change was in the baggage cart scenes with the florescent bulbs, which was absolutely gorgeous, but the soft, happy lighting downplayed the dark, noir-like themes going on on-screen. Somebody needed to do their homework on what noir lighting is all about, but as to whose flub it was will remain a mystery.

If you watch Night Train, be prepared for a Hitchcock-like noir thriller that takes an unexpected sci-fi twist, and get ready for lots of other twists along the way too. While it’s not the best film I’ve ever seen, it certainly grabbed my attention with the mystery of the dead man and his mysterious box, and the things the characters do for the box’s contents are believable and keep your interest. If you like your movies a little on the darker side and with a touch of the macabre, then you’ll love Night Train.

Movie Monday No. 7 - In Bruges

Well, here's starting off a new month with a new review. Let's see if I can start another streak of updating them on or near Monday (the previous record was 5 weeks straight). The problem I had in February ended up being that I am came down with a nasty cold and didn't get out much and didn't feel like doing much of anything, even Movie Monday. Well, that's about to change. So here for your reading pleasure (or displeasure, as the case may be), is a review of 2007's twisted, un-P.C. drama/thriller In Bruges.

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"What’s a f**king fifty year-old Chinese lollipop man doing with kung-fu?"
--Colin Farrell as Ray, In Bruges

Up until this film, I had yet to see a project that truly captured the agony that a first-time hitman might go through when his first job blows up in his face. It’s a theme that intrigues me and I’ve seen it attempted in other films, but never to the degree of success that Martin McDonagh has pulled off in his 2007 feature for Universal/Focus Features, In Bruges.

I came across this film at the local Lackluster (oh wait, did I say that? I meant Blockbuster) Video store in my hometown and realized that it was cheaper to buy the previously viewed copy for $3.99 than it was to rent the damn movie for $4.99. Since I’m a big fan of offbeat British humor, I thought this would be a good match for me. It was, but this film also packs an emotional wallop I was not prepared for.

In Bruges finds our two heroes Ray (Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) taking a few days off in the Belgium town of Bruges after Ray’s first hit went wrong. It’s not revealed in this early stage exactly what went wrong with it, but they’ve received orders from Harry (Ralph Fiennes), their boss, to sit tight and wait for him to call. After some very comedic sightseeing that gets Ray into more trouble than he bargained for (and reveals his peculiar fascination with midgets), Ray scores a date with a cute girl on a local film crew (who is of normal human size, I’d like to note).

When Ray’s off on his date, Ken gets the call from Harry, and it’s between these two points that we really learn what went wrong. Ray shot a priest, and as he stepped out of the confession booth blazing bullets, a bullet blew open the head of a five year-old boy who was praying because, as he had written in a note Ray finds in the boy’s hands, he was sad. Ken pulls him away before the cops arrive, and now Harry wants Ken to "whack" Ray. "Nobody does a kid and gets away with it," Harry says. "Nobody."

As to whether Ken offs Ray or doesn’t, I’ll leave that up to you to find out when you watch In Bruges. While I was watching it, the film seemed to take on three different shapes -- the hitman movie, the neo-noir movie, and the offbeat independent European comedy. This unique blend of these three genres, if you will, allows In Bruges to be something very unique -- not a hitman neo-noir European comedy (duh), but a very emotional film about what humans do when other humans screw up.

Take for example Colin Farrell’s character, Ray. He’s got the biggest screw-up of all -- he shot a kid by accident. In one of Farrell’s best pieces of acting so far in his career, he actually curls up into Ken’s arms and bawls for the death of the child’s life he so ruthlessly took. This scene solidified the theme of the film for me -- that no matter who we are, we must first own up to what is ours and what we’ve done. It’s a powerful, very human theme, disguised in trippy neo-noir coating.

The music and production design further go to isolate the characters into this surreal world they live in. Carter Burwell composed a masterful piano-led score that tapped into the sadness and desolate feeling of Bruges, along with highlighting the more colorful parts of the characters’ personalities. His chase music, for when Harry catches up to Ray, is also quite exemplary. The production design was done by Michael Carlin, who captures the natural colors and architecture of Bruges masterfully, and with good taste.

There are two drawbacks to In Bruges -- the excessive use of the "f" word and the gruesome detail they put into the gunfire wounds. I thought these two elements were a little unnecessary in order to get their point across; we don’t need to see a chunk of the five year-old’s head missing in order to know that he’s been shot. A little blood and a small hole would have sufficed. Plus, to emphasize how much language there was, a rather amusing (or appalling, depending on how you look at it) montage is included on the DVD in the bonus features of nothing but the instances of foul language used in the movie. While it made me laugh, it might make some of you more virgin-eared readers out there in cyberland shriek in dismay.

Overall, I’d have to say that In Bruges is a very different film -- not at all what it is advertised or hailed to be. I think it has at its core a very serious theme about your sins catching up to you, and that if you try to run, you only delay the inevitable. A pretty grim outlook, but one that matches the lives of criminals and hitmen that populate the world this movie takes place in.