GREAT EXPECTATIONS?

by John M. Floyd

The other day I received two Netflix envelopes on the same day. It’s always fun when that happens; the only thing better is when I receive three. Anyhow, these were two crime/suspense movies, In Bruges and Dolan’s Cadillac, and I was looking forward to them both — the first one because Rob Lopresti had recommended it, the second one because it was an adaptation of a Stephen King short story. I love King’s short fiction, and I remember reading “Dolan’s Cadillac” years ago, in the collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes. (It’s one of those King stories that’s more suspense than horror, which is fine by me — he’s good at both.)

As things turned out, and as is so often the case in this life, I got a mixed bag.

The bad news is . . .

Dolan’s Cadillac was a little disappointing. To be fair, it’s hard to adapt a short story to the big screen. Most films are two hours long, and short fiction is, well, short. This means screenwriters have to come up with a lot more story to go along with the original material. Sometimes this works (Rear Window, 3:10 to Yuma, Duel, Brokeback Mountain, High Noon, etc.), and sometimes it doesn’t.

This was a story of obsession and revenge. After the wife of a schoolteacher (Wes Bentley, who did such a great job in American Beauty) is murdered by a sleazy Vegas crime lord (Christian Slater), the grieving widower decides to carry out his vengeance in a unique way — unique enough to make for a really entertaining short story. But the movie, alas, was a bit too long and too much, or at least too much for me. It wasn’t a terrible film, and I enjoyed the ending and the teacher’s determined preparation and planning in order to achieve his goal — but the rest of the movie seemed like filler. Worst of all, I didn’t like the hero much, which never bodes well.

The good news is . . .

In Bruges was excellent. It involves two Irish hit men (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) who have been sent to Bruges, Belgium, to lie low after a botched job in London. They are an odd couple in every way: the rookie is brooding and impatient and bored, the veteran is calm and fatherlike and fascinated by the history of the Medieval city. After a few days, everything changes when their boss (Ralph Fiennes) contacts them with instructions that turn their “vacation” into a deadly showdown between the three men.

This film has all the ingredients of a successful story: fascinating characters, an unpredictable plot, a moral dilemma (several of them, actually), a fairytale setting unfamiliar to most of us, and an almost perfect ending with multiple twists. Each of the three hit men have a conscience and a code of ethics, and learn “life lessons” before . . . well, that’s all I can say without spoiling things. Rob and I agree that In Bruges is a film of contradictions and soul-searching and, ultimately, redemption. And the most complex characters I’ve seen in a while.

It was impressive to me that the writer/director violated quite a few “rules” and still made the story work. The main players, after all, are killers for hire; it’s hard to make an audience sympathetic to guys like that. There are no cops or amateur sleuths around to exact justice and set things right. Even the minor characters are distasteful: rude tourists, a foulmouthed dwarf, a young woman who provides drugs to a Dutch film crew, an arrogant ticket-seller. The only breath of fresh air is a pregnant innkeeper who has some of the most interesting scenes in the story.

Conclusions

Two things happened as a result of my watching these two movies: one is that I think I’m a better writer for having seen them. A well-made film (or a well-written story or novel) is always educational, and I believe you can learn almost as much from a poorly-made film (or a poorly-written story or novel) as from a good one, if you can pinpoint the reasons you don’t like it.

The second thing is that, since I chose one of these movies because I thought it’d be good and one because a friend told me to . . . well, maybe I do better following the advice of others.

Any of you have recommendations?