In Bruges 

It has some sparkling moments, including strong – yet contrasting – performances from Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, but In Bruges still left us feeling vaguely dissatisfied as we watched the credits roll at the end. 

After a botched hit-job, gunmen Ken (Gleeson) and Ray (Colin Farrell) hole up in Bruges waiting for instructions from their boss, Harry (Fiennes). The first twenty minutes are just plain dull, as the two men pass the time with a spot of sightseeing.

Farrell chews his fingernails a lot and whinges about Bruges being a “fookin’ shithole” in an Oirish accent that he must have borrowed from an episode of Father Ted, while the more mature Ken admires the mediaeval architecture. However, things turn nasty when Harry orders Ken to kill Ray, and then travels to Bruges himself to take matters into his own hands. Fiennes merrily chews up the scenery, with a cockney accent that comes across like a psychopathic version of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

There’s a huge amount of swearing and a supporting cast that includes a racist dwarf and an eccentric gun-runner. The problem is that most of the characters are so unpleasant that you don’t really care what happens to them. Only Gleeson’s dignified performance as a world-weary assassin elicits any real sympathy, and the ending involves a coincidence of such utterly contrived implausibility that it just feels like cheating. 

I give it 6 out of 10