"In Bruges," or how do you feel about misleading movie trailers?

Why the trailer and not the movie? Because the two are only distantly related, a blatant act of dishonesty on the part of whoever produced the trailer, and thus ought to be considered separately.

The trailer, formerly available here, is a hysterical romp. The movie, on the other hand, is a sometimes moving meditation on the psychic cost of murder, a tale of two hit men laying low in Bruges, mulling the consequences of their chosen profession as they await instructions from their boss.

Brendan Gleeson is stunning as Ken, hit man number one. Ralph Fiennes, as the Godot-like boss whose instructions the two hit men wait for, is a nervous bad guy. The movie makes sensitive and evocative use of gruesome Flemish Renaissance art, notably that of Hieronymus Bosch. And a climactic scene has Colin Farrell's tender-hearted Ray, hit man number two, running past a monument to the tender-hearted Charles the Good, count of Flanders, murdered in Bruges in 1127.

Since In Bruges and its trailer are so radically dissimilar, I'll take a break from fiction and ask if you've ever been misled by a movie trailer and, if so, how you felt once you'd seen the movie.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Irish crime fiction