16 發光的城市 A R O U N D T O W N FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 2008 • TAIPEI TIMES

Hit men on holiday

Colin Farrell brings his A-game to the film-directing debut of playwright Martin McDonagh

By MANOHLA DARGIS NY Times News Service, New York

long after the start of In Bruges, an amusing Not trifle from the potty-mouthed playwright Martin McDonagh, two hit men pause before a painting, awe and puzzlement and perhaps something else shading their faces. The painting — a 15th-century Netherland- ish diptych — shows a prisoner wearing a loincloth and a strangely calm expression given that he’s being flayed alive. A small gathering of men (an audience, you might say) stands around the condemned, whose left calf is being peeled like a blood orange. McDonagh has a thing for red. He splashes it around in his farcical play The Lieutenant of Inishmore and does much the same for In Bruges, his feature filmmak- ing debut. Neither work offers much beyond the comedy of words and wounds, though there is sting in both. In Inishmore an IRA enforcer says: “Come on in ahead for yourselves. I’m just in the middle of shooting me Dad.” The lines are funny kind of, sort of, precisely because of the apparent diffidence with which the enforcer (or, rather, McDonagh) joins two seemingly dissonant themes, in this case politeness and patricide. The enforcer tor- tures men in the name of terror, but (oh, irony!) he loves The Israeli-Palestinian his cat. The film’s hit men — an Irish Laurel and Hardy act conflict presents a singularly called Ray and Ken and played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson — have come to the Belgian tourist unpromising source of town of Bruges on puzzling orders from their boss, Harry laughs in Adam Sandler’s (Ralph Fiennes). There, about an hour from Brussels and a greater psychological distance from their home in action-hairdressing London, Ray and Ken wait and talk and wait and talk in sex comedy a hotel room built for two. Ken reads books and coaxes Ray to enjoy the sights. Ray responds by scuffing his shoes on the ground like the child he’s meant to resem- ble, from his pretty pout to his comically expressive eye- brows, dark slashes that rise and fall and further accent the already heavily intonated dialogue. The camera drags along too. Much of the pleasure of McDonagh’s dialogue comes from intonation and repetition. His characters tend to repeat their own and one another’s words, a device that forces you to heed both the musicality of the language and all that lies beneath those words — the oblique hopes, the implied fears, the unarticulated relationships. “We shall strike a balance between culture and fun,” says Ken, while coercing Ray to go sightseeing. “Somehow, I believe, Ken, the balance will tip in the favor of culture,” says Ray. Farrell’s voice rises up nearly to a falsetto on the word tip, which underscores the absurdity of Watch out, he’s packing a the scene — two paid killers sightseeing in Bruges or anywhere — while adding an inescapable suggestion of menace. Gleeson, Farrell and especially the late-arriving and welcome Fiennes have great fun rummaging around inside McDonagh’s modest bag of tricks. The three work well together, with Gleeson’s solid, stolid physicality and performance giving ballast to Farrell’s lilting, fluttery turn. It’s easy for Farrell to turn on heat; what’s hard for him as an actor is turning the temperature off, or at least blow-dryer down, as he does here — finding another way to connect to the material (and us) beyond the promise in his dark, By A.O. Scott fluttering lashes. His performance as Ray is as crudely NY Times News Service, New York conceived as it is finally sentimental (the same goes for the film), but it’s also winning because Farrell makes us et me be blunt: You polemicists, but there is some- unthinkable, but the taboos that The film’s image of Israelis as see the goofy side of seduction. Don’t Mess With the thing both appealing and authen- You Don’t Mess With the Zohan hopelessly behind the pop-cul- In Bruges is itself a goof, both diverting and forget- Zohan is the finest tic about a vision of the Jewish is unwilling to smash are few ture curve — Zohan’s musical table. Despite the guns, genre posturing and self-con- post-Zionist action- state on its 60th birthday that indeed. The movie is principally taste belongs to the same era as sciously naughty shocks (jokes about racist dwarfs and Lhairdressing sex comedy I have emphasizes lithe young bodies interested in establishing its main his hairdo — is itself something fat Americans) it’s also unmistakably sincere. The writing ever seen. That it is the only one frolicking, flirting and playing character as a new archetype in of an anachronism. The hip-hop- sounds like the handiwork of a very clever young film- I have ever seen — and why is Hacky Sack on the beach. If you the annals of Jewish humor. He’s inflected Hebrew pop on the making student with a fondness for Sartre and Tarantino, that? what cultural deficiency will it, it is no dream. a warrior and also, to an extent soundtrack (by Hadag Nachash) though here the 30-something McDonagh only name- or ideological conspiracy has But only part of Zohan’s life undreamed of in the combined provides some evidence that real drops Nicolas Roeg and Touch of Evil. These are solid prevented this genre from is carefree, and it’s the other works of Philip Roth, Woody Israelis are much cooler than the allusions, certainly, yet like that 15th-century painting of Adam Sandler stars in You Don’t Mess flourishing? — does not much part — the job that requires Allen and Howard Stern, a sexual ones on screen. And the willing- the unfortunate prisoner being flayed alive — which sug- With the Zohan, directed by Dennis detract from my judgment. heavy weapons, deadly stealth hedonist, so utterly free of neuro- ness of the American Jewish gests that McDonagh means to say something about the Dugan. Photos courtesy of Sony Pictures Directed by Dennis Dugan and hand-to-hand combat with a sis or inhibition that it’s hard to filmmakers to mock their Middle spectacle of violence — they don’t add up to anything. He from a script by Judd Apatow, superterrorist called the Phan- imagine him and Sigmund Freud Eastern cousins is also a subtle, talks a blue streak beautifully, but he has yet to find the Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler are, for Dugan, Smigel, Apatow tom (John Turturro) — that occupying the same planet, much unmistakable sign of cultural nuance and poetry that make his red images signify with (who also stars), Zohan has its and Sandler, the substances drives him into the diaspora. less the same cultural-religious maturity. commensurate sizzle and pop. share of scatology, crude sexual that come most readily to hand. Zohan may have a picture of tradition. “Subtle” and “maturity” may humor and queasy homopho- (So does a made-up but scarily Moshe Dayan on his bedroom Sex, for Zohan, is like seem like odd words to use bia, the basic elements from realistic Israeli soft drink called wall, but his real idol is Paul hummus: there is an endless about a movie that wrings big which male-centered Hollywood Fizzy-Bubbeleh.) Mitchell, the American hair- supply, and no occasion on laughs from pelvic gyrations, comedies are constructed these And the filmmakers spray care mogul whose outdated which it could be judged inappro- indoor Hacky Sack and filthy- days. There are supporting roles all this stuff around in a brave styles Zohan studies as if they priate. He is always on the make, sounding fake-Hebrew and for stand-up comedians (Ahmed and noble cause. US diplomatic were pages of the Talmud. He but Sandler’s natural sweetness -Arabic words. But much as it Ahmed, Nick Swardson) and efforts have so far proved inad- wants to stop fighting and cut inoculates the character against revels in its own infantilism, You Saturday Night Live veterans equate to the task of bringing “silky smooth” hair. And so, like sleaziness. In his feathery 1980s Don’t Mess With the Zohan is (Rob Schneider, Kevin Nealon), peace to the Middle East, but everyone else with a dream, he haircut and loud, half-buttoned also brazenly self-confident in its a few oddball cameos (Shelley You Don’t Mess With the Zohan migrates to New York, where shirts, Zohan joins a long tradi- refusal to pander to the imagined Berman, Chris Rock) and exqui- taps into deeper and more dura- he finds an entry-level job at a tion, stretching back from Will sensitivity of its audience. In this sitely random “as themselves” ble sources of American global salon run by a pretty Palestin- Ferrell through Steve Martin to it differs notably from Albert appearances by John McEnroe power in its quest for a plausible ian named Dalia (Emmanuelle the great Jerry Lewis himself, of Brooks’s Looking for Comedy and Mariah Carey. Why not? Less end to hostilities. Ancient griev- Chriqui). goofballs who mistake them- in the Muslim World, which amusingly, there are also some ances and festering hatreds are A romance between them selves for studs and turn out to approached some of the same lumpy computer-assisted special no match for the forces of sex, seems at once inevitable and be right. topics with misplaced thoughtful- effects, an overstuffed plot and a money, celebrity and exuberant, ness and tact. Colin Farrell, right, stars as Ray, a hit man in Martin McDonagh’s film In scattering of awkwardly exe- unapologetic stupidity. I suppose some Middle East Bruges. Photo courtesy of Group Power cuted gags. But a lot of the crude Zohan (Sandler) certainly policy-scolds may find reasons bodily-function jokes are actually seems to think so, though he to quarrel with Zohan, either pretty funny, not least because might express his views dif- for being too evenhanded or not they are supplemented by more ferently, and certainly with a evenhanded enough in its treat- hummus-based humor than you thicker accent. A highly skilled You Don’t Mess With the Zohan ment of Israelis and Palestinians. might have thought possible. military operative who special- Directed by: Dennis Dugan Did I mention that it’s a comedy? In Bruges You might also think, as I izes in counterterrorism, he is Seriously, though, the movie’s certainly did, that the Israeli- basically a less anguished version Starring: Adam Sandler (Zohan), John Turturro (Phantom), radical, utopian and perfectly Directed by: Martin McDonagh Palestinian conflict presents a of the character played by Eric Emmanuelle Chriqui (Dalia), Nick Swardson (Michael), Lainie obvious point is that the endless singularly unpromising source Bana in Munich. The brilliant Kazan (Gail), Rob Schneider (Salim), Ahmed Ahmed (Waleed), Kevin collection and recitation of politi- Starring: Colin Farrell (Ray), Brendan Gleeson (Ken), of laughs. But as Yitzhak Rabin opening sequence places him in a Nealon (Kevin), Chris Rock (Taxi Driver), Shelley Berman (Zohan’s cal grievances is not funny at all, Ralph Fiennes (Harry), Clemence Poesy (Chloe), once said, enough of blood and tableau that would bring a tear to father), Mariah Carey (herself), John McEnroe (himself) and that political strife is a trivial Jeremie Renier (Eirik) tears. He did not go on to pro- Theodor Herzl’s eye. Whether it distraction from the things that pose semen, urine, shampoo or would be a tear of joy or dismay Running time: 113 minutes really matter. There is so much Running time: 107 minutes hummus as substitutes, but those I will leave to more seasoned Taiwan release: Today hummus, and so little time. Taiwan release: Today