10 Underrated Comedy Performances In Film

Fiennes’ mid-career defining role as M. Gustave in Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel will forever be one of cinema’s finest comic performances. But it was as crime boss Harry in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges five years previously that showed audiences an as yet unseen side to one of Hollywood’s most captivating leading men.

In a film that garnered much well deserved acclaim for the odd couple pairing of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, Fiennes’ deadpan, borderline psychotic cockney mobster is a perfectly deployed character in the Don Logan vein who lights up the screen every time he appears.

“You’ve got to stick to your principles,” says Harry. And stick to them he does. Harry lives by a twisted moral code whereby he’s perfectly happy to maim, murder and extort, but as soon as you insult his kids you’ve taken it a step too far. The climactic gunfight between Harry and Farrell’s Ray is a masterclass in balancing high stakes violence with dark, dark humour; Harry desperately wants to kill Ray, but has enough honour to allow Ray to jump into a canal and try to escape before he continues to shoot at him. It’s absurd, ridiculous, and utterly hilarious.

Stand-Out Moment: Harry’s showdown with Gleeson’s Ken in a cafe the main square. “Let me get this straight. Not only have you refused to kill the boy, you’ve stopped the boy from killing himself. Which would have solved my problem. Sounds like it would have solved the boy’s problem.”