Martin McDonagh
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Don't Look Now (1973)
Directed by Nicolas Roeg
influenced In Bruges (2008), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Themes
Ray, meanwhile, is incredibly miserable, finding Bruges to be totally devoid of anything bearing even a spark of life, except for his childlike glee at watching a movie shoot, where a dwarf (Jordan Prentice) is starring in a dream sequence in an homage to Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now , while a gorgeous drug dealer named Chloë (Clémence Poésy) sells to the cast and crew.
No one is quite sure what the movie is about, but Chloë advises that "it's too strong to call it a homage to Don't Look Now."
They’re filming midgets!"), then learns the film-within-a-film is an homage to Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, another film in a city with canals and dark corners, concerned with guilt and irrecoverable loss.
The film’s final joke will especially appeal to moviegoers who are fans of “Don’t Look Now,” another thriller set in a city that, like Bruges, is linked by canals (Venice).
As self-reflexive gags go, it’s effective only if we believe that mother and son, both portrayed as ignorant hicks, would tolerate even 30 seconds of Don’t Look Now, the film they’re referring to, let alone repeated views.
The Guard (2011)
Directed by John Michael McDonagh
influenced by In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Much like McDonagh's brother Michael's "In Bruges" (which also starred Gleeson), "The Guard" gleefully mixes strong violence with deliciously funny dialogue, with the characters taking time out of the crime plot to comment on the oddities of words like "liquidate" or "anomaly."
The film is awfully funny, but like his brother's "In Bruges," it also has notes of melancholy and brutal, murderous realities.
Written and directed as a first feature by John Michael McDonagh (older brother of “In Bruges” playwright/filmmaker Martin McDonagh), it’s more comedy than thriller, since the bad guys (Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, David Wilmot) are revealed early on and, despite an inexplicable penchant for quoting Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, their demise seems inevitable.
In his efforts to keep up with his prolific sibling, John McDonagh was savvy enough to enlist well-traveled actor Gleeson (Gangs of New York, two or three Harry Potters, and John Boorman's wonderful The General), whose role as Ken in Martin McDonagh's In Bruges is a latter-day pinnacle of harp movie magic.
Rookie writer/director McDonagh has a short resume — he’s best known as the brother of Martin McDonagh, the director of In Bruges.
It’s a fabulous debut for McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin McDonagh, who wrote and directed the not-dissimilar “In Bruges”).
It seems unfair to compare most any movie to Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers or to Touch of Evil, but this one begs for such through, for example, specific reference to that latter, also 1950s Welles thriller.
The writer-director incorporates a scene from the 1958 Orson Welles classic Touch of Evil to show where he's at in terms of crime drama, meaning get ready to have the rug pulled out from under you.
But neither the dank criminality nor the clip from Touch of Evil makes In Bruges noir any more than the hints of surrealism make it Fellini.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Seven Psychopaths (2012), In Bruges (2008), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Characters Themes Dialogue
The banter of Ray and Ken may remind you of Jules and Vincent in "Pulp Fiction," but there's an unbearable remorse behind Ray's churlishness, related to the botched hit.
In Bruges, with two killers exiled to Belgium after a badly botched London hit until the heat comes off, turns into something different from the standard-issue post-Tarantino film; it becomes the post-post Tarantino film, one where the talk talk bang bang is actually, just as it was in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, about something.
In Bruges, at its best, works like Pulp Fiction with Irish (and Belgian) accents, digressing into weird discourse and giving a bunch of actors the occasion to shine in small, peculiar roles.
It suffers from some moments of staleness, sometimes feeling like bits of "Sexy Beast" and "Pulp Fiction" forced to share a room.
Extremely violent -- almost upsettingly so -- it's the next evolutionary rung past "Pulp Fiction" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels."
Not since “ Pulp Fiction ” has there been a hitman duo as dynamic as Ray and Ken.
Then Fiennes arrives and blows the film apart at the seams with an astonishingly fierce turn reminiscent of Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast.
Awaiting the call from deranged gang boss Harry (Fiennes, channelling Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast), Ken is keen to explore ‘the Venice of the North’ while Ray would rather just drink, sulk and swear.
Fiennes, though not as scary as Ben Kingsley was in “Sexy Beast,” is especially arresting and funny as the kind of crime lord who has three kids and a string of Christmas cards hung over the fireplace just so.
When Ralph Fiennes appears as Harry, it’s as though he’s swallowed the soul of Ben Kingsley’s Don Logan from Sexy Beast and added a dash more psychotic fury.
McDonagh's idea of profound profanity consists of Ray being very amused by midgets, fat Americans, and effete Canadians and Ken being sucked in by the medieval, touristy charms of sleepy Bruges; both await some word from their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), himself busy doing a real convincing impersonation of Ben Kingsley's insane mobster from Sexy Beast.
The star appears to be set on one-upping Ben Kingsley in "Sexy Beast," which is fine since "In Bruges" is starting to flag by this point, and Fiennes's energy gets the film over the finish line.
The Quiet Man (1952)
Directed by John Ford
influenced The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Characters Visuals Themes
As for the iconography, it’s hard not to think of the idealised roistering of John Ford’s The Quiet Man , with Condon’s brightly-clad, red-haired character forthrightly channelling the spirit of Maureen O’Hara as the lonesome, literary, eminently sane Siobhan.
The film starts out feeling almost like a sequel to John Ford’s “The Quiet Man.”
The hokeyness masking a darker underbelly in Inisherin also appears influenced by John Ford’s The Quiet Man , in which the innocence of rural Ireland is contrasted with an ex-boxer’s Chicago past, and then subverted.
It seems unfair to compare most any movie to Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers or to Touch of Evil, but this one begs for such through, for example, specific reference to that latter, also 1950s Welles thriller.
Sam Rockwell is the agent of chaos as Marty's pal and wannabe actor Billy Bickle (an oblique reference to Taxi Driver?) who kidnaps a dog to claim the reward, unaware that the pooch belongs to Charlie.
Inspiration arrives like spurts of blood once Marty starts hanging around less with his girlfriend Kaya (a wasted Abbie Cornish) and more with his best friend Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell), who, like his Travis Bickle namesake in Taxi Driver, has several screws loose.
At one point, Billy even does a quick “You talkin’ to me?”-type Taxi Driver riff.
Marty's best friend is Billy Bickle ( Sam Rockwell ), and if his last name is the same as the hero in Marty Scorsese's " Taxi Driver ," I leave that for you to puzzle out.
The picture is smart enough to work on multiple levels: as a witty salute to masculine '70s cinema ("Marty" can stand for Marty Scorsese as well as Martin McDonagh), as a deconstruction of same (Rockwell's "Bickle," alluding to De Niro's psychopath in Scorsese's Taxi Driver, symbolically embodies the eager violence Marty needs for a commercially successful script), and as an existential consideration of the role of self-expression in ascribing meaning to life, including the question of artistic "responsibility."
The stories are enacted on screen in the minds of Marty, Billy and Hans, recalling such films of the 1960s as Alain Robbe-Grillet's Trans-Europ-Express and Agnès Varda's Les créatures, where what we see are the books the central characters are writing, rewriting and tinkering with.
Tarantino's breakthrough reimagining of the crime movie has inspired countless would-be successors, some rather good (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Go), others borderline unwatchable (A Life Less Ordinary, Lucky Number Slevin, Smokin' Aces).
Tonally, it’s a bit like Danny Boyle ’s misguided “A Life Less Ordinary” — with a promising British talent lured by America who is too eager to please and finds himself in way over his head.
Cold Pursuit (2019)
Directed by Hans Petter Moland
influenced by In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Themes
“In Bruges” and “Fargo,” in particular, leave their fingerprints on this film, but “Cold Pursuit” doesn’t aim as high.
Instead, Moland seems to lean closer to absurdity à la In Bruges or Fargo .
In many ways both films draw heavily on films like Fargo and In Bruges , bringing together a rag-tag collection of odd-ball characters with a propensity for violence.
It hits a healthy midway point between the idiosyncratic quirkiness of a Coen Brothers effort like Fargo , and the cathartic blend of mirth and murder of Martin McDonagh with In Bruges or the more recent Three Billboards .
Or, for prime twenty-first century black comedy, Martin McDonagh’s “In Bruges.”
If you like witty, and savagely funny humor, like the humor in The Favourite, Fargo or Seven Psychopaths, it will leave you in stitches.
In his feature debut, "In Bruges," he has made a remarkable first film, as impressive in its own way as " House of Games ," the first film by David Mamet , who McDonagh is sometimes compared with.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Directed by Frank Darabont
influenced Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Characters
Almost seemingly channeling Morgan Freeman’s work in “The Shawshank Redemption,” Harrelson becomes a through-line for the audience to engage while then echoing Mahershala Ali’s work in “Moonlight.”
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
influenced The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Characters Visuals
As implacably played by Sheila Flitton, she’s a pipe-smoking version of Death, in “The Seventh Seal” (1957).
Just as Sheila Flitton’s crone-like neighbour Mrs McCormick comes increasingly to resemble Bengt Ekerot’s embodiment of Death in Bergman’s The Seventh Seal , so McDonagh’s acerbic dialogue circles the subject of impending obliteration in tragicomic fashion.
There’s a plethora of Irish “types”: the chatty pub keeper, the omen-spouting old lady who looks like Death in “The Seventh Seal,” the small-town copper who sheathes his brutality in brisk protocol, the village idiot.
A black-hooded, harbinger-of-death-type old woman character seems pulled straight from The Seventh Seal.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Directed by Tom Gormican
influenced by Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Plot
As The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent sprinkles in winking references to its own structure and twists, I couldn’t help but internally compare it to the excellence of Barry Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty and Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths and come away underwhelmed.
The working-class Irish accents, grubby aesthetic, and surreal, dreamlike interludes inevitably recall Neil Jordan's early work, but In Bruges resembles films like The Crying Game for larger reasons: When it's funny, it's hilarious; when it's serious, it's powerful; and either way, it's an endless pleasant surprise.
Layer Cake (2004)
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
influenced Seven Psychopaths (2012), In Bruges (2008)
Characters
This hard-talking London crime boss is a figure made familiar by such pictures as "Sexy Beast" and "Layer Cake," but McDonagh gives him a fierce moral code that provides the movie with its final jolt, and Fiennes demonstrates that he is well into the character actor phase of his career.
In terms of pacing and structure, it feels like Matthew Vaughn’s “Layer Cake,” and with its blending of reality and screenplay-in-progress it reminds you a bit of Spike Jonze’ “Adaptation.”
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Directed by Gus Van Sant
influenced The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Themes
Unfolding like a gleefully sadistic mirror image of the scene in “Good Will Hunting” when Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon about the best part of his day — one friend encouraging the other to leave their go-nowhere life behind — “The Banshees of Inisherin” watches as Colm’s decision ripples across the kind of small community where conflict tends to be swallowed like communion, and cruelty is only exercised behind closed doors.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
influenced Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
Characters
He kind of reminded me a little bit of Russell Crowe’s Bud White from L.A. Confidential: he’s a similar brute, but only dumber, racist, and even more prone to unprompted violence.
Consider that old saw of a dwarf actor enlisted for a surreal dream sequence in an art film (already definitively put out to pasture by Tom DiCillo's Living in Oblivion ), here made "palatable" by having said little person be a bigoted prig given to hiring Dutch whores and frequenting Ray's drug-dealer love interest (Clémence Poésy).
This diminutive dyspeptic, Jimmy (Jordan Prentice, in a peculiar gloss on Peter Dinklage's role in Living in Oblivion) keeps himself entertained with hookers and drugs, the latter provided by Chloe (Poesy), who Ray comes to see as a kindred spirit.
As per the satire in Living in Oblivion, the scene being shot features a dwarf (Jordan Prentice) in a dream sequence.