DVD: In Bruges

Universal In playwright Martin McDonagh's debut as a screenwriter-director, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play two Irish gangland hitmen who are packed off to Belgium by their boss after they mess up a job in London.

It's an outrageous, post-Tarantino romp with enough blood-spurting violence and brazenly un-PC banter to offend anyone who's in the mood to be offended. But there are times when the action pauses to establish a bleaker, more reflective atmosphere, and it's the delicate balance between these two tones which marks out McDonagh as a true original.