Movie Review - 'In Bruges'

In Bruges

Starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Rated R

Two hitmen arrive in Belgium with instructions to lay low. For Ken (Brendan Gleeson), it’s a welcome change of pace from the grittiness and stress provided by his native Dublin . Ken is swept up as a tourist in Bruges , a beautiful city with towers ambitiously reaching for the sky and citizens ambitiously reaching to stay on the ground. We soon learn that Bruges (pronounced “broozh”) is Belgium ’s best link to the medieval era. So that’s something, especially for Ken, who can’t get enough sightseeing.

For Ray (Colin Farrell), Bruges is worse than prison or hell. Those are his words. We can’t understand what he has against this breathtaking spot on the map other than that it isn’t Dublin, but Ray is twitchy when we meet him, and it doesn’t take long to find out why: In the course of a recent job, Ray accidentally shot an innocent bystander. Yes, even a hitman can have a conscience. The shooting has left Ray paranoid and anxious in a city where you go to be exactly the opposite.

Ray is not content to sit in his hotel room and wait for the word on what to do next. He stumbles onto a girl named Chloe (Clemence Poesy) and immediately charms her with stories about little people. These stories aren’t completely out of the blue; Chloe has been on a film set where a dwarf has been cast to appear in a dream sequence. Ray cajoles and later befriends the tiny actor, whom he always refers to by the inflammatory term “midget,” and then provides him with cocaine, which provides us with one of the more surrealistically funny scenes we’re likely to see this year.

All the while, the other shoe is waiting to fall for Ken and especially Ray. Their boss, who materializes about an hour into the film as an intense and unlikable Ralph Fiennes, determines that he’ll travel to Bruges to deliver the instructions himself. Crime lords on the go are never a good thing in films, and writer-director Martin McDonagh heightens the impact by making us wait so long to see Fiennes in the first place.

It’s one of many smart choices he makes with In Bruges, an intelligent, perfectly cast, and tremendously funny film that never plays it safe. After all, we’ve got a racist dwarf going toe to toe with Colin Farrell in the solitude of Belgium; what’s conservative about that approach?

McDonagh may take his stories to extremes for members of his audience, but everything aligns with his characters, and that’s always the best way to go. The result gives us Farrell’s best performance, some riotously funny dialogue and scenes and one of the most unique and memorable crime flicks in ages.