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'IN BRUGES'

Last update: June 26, 2008 - 4:14 PM

'IN BRUGES'

Martin McDonagh's "In Bruges" (★★★ 1/2 out of four stars, rated R for strong bloody violence, pervasive language and some drug use) is one of the indie treats of the year, a frantic, madcap crime comedy/drama that gives new meaning to the term "bloody funny." Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star as Irish hitmen on the lam in Belgium's quaintest tourist town. Ralph Fiennes plays their boss, a psychopathic crime lord. What he has planned for them will permanently break up the team, but in this film plans rarely work out as intended. Add to the mix a fetching, friendly cocaine dealer (Clemence Poesy of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") and a racist dwarf (Jordan Prentice, who starred as "Howard the Duck" and as Giant Bag of Weed in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle") and you've got a zany thriller that plays like a Tarantino script with a Dublin accent. (9:40 nightly, Riverview Theater, 3800 42nd Av. S., Mpls. $3. 612-729-7369.)

COLIN COVERT