Pro: It’s a very smart film with outstanding performances from Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell. Writer-director Martin McDonagh has a great way of showing how normal conversations can break down when people are under extreme duress, sometimes with paradoxically hilarious results. “What’s a fifty-year old lollipop man doing knowing fooking karate?”

Con: On the other hand, it is one more violent underworld drama that for all its peculiarities, knotty plotting, and embedded surrealism, is still one more violent underworld drama. There have been a lot of these recently, and viewed as a crime drama, McDonagh doesn’t add anything to the basic principle that violent people have a tendency to solve their every problem with violence. I was also unimpressed by the magic dum-dum bullets that seemed to do whatever was necessary to advance the plot.

Overall: A film well worth seeing despite some glitches. I can’t guarantee you’ll like it, but I can guarantee that In Bruges contains some great scenes and lines of dialogue unlike anything you’ll see anywhere else. We’ll be looking out for anything McDonagh does in the future.