Wow, what a strange movie this is. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but I certainly didn't know what was going to happen next, and that's commendable for a thriller. In Bruges follows Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), two low-level Irish hit men who are sent to Bruges, Belgium after Ray bungles a hit and accidentally kills a child.
In Bruges, they are supposed to lay low and await further instructions from their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), a short-tempered potty mouth. Instead, Ray continually convinces Ken to go out on the town, and an assortment of mishaps occur involving a midget actor, a trampy teenage girl, and a stash of cocaine. These comic adventures offset the rather somber tone of the second half of the film, wherein Harry travels to Bruges to straighten out with these two idiots.
It is here that the film both derails and offers up some rather surprising emotions. You see, Ray is sorry for what he has done - for killing the child. He can't get over it, and seeks solace in his friendship with Ken. Ken, of course, has secrets of his own that make it very challenging for him to deepen his bond with Ray. I'm being oblique here to preserve some of the film's surprises, but let me say that before too long, Harry has both Ray and Ken in his sights. What a surprise, though, that two hit men in a movie actually have emotions to talk about. These guys go on a tour of the city, taking in the grandeur of its churches and its medieval architecture, and they talk about their regrets for killing people, and what death is going to mean to them. They talk about purgatory and hell, for Christ's sake.
This is what I liked about the film above all. The mishaps in the bars are funny and all, and the sense that no matter how hard he tries, Ray just cannot escape Bruges, and it may in fact be his Hell, but it's the conversations between Ray and Ken early on in the film that gives it its drive. (Both Farrell and Gleeson deliver the goods, and one shot of Gleeson after he's had his quota of coke is about the funniest reaction shot I've seen in a long time.) I really just expected some silliness about a couple of smart-ass hit men in some city in Europe - just another Tarantino variation. I got so much more.
The film becomes overly violent in its third act - I'm talking guts and brains here - and it forces some coincidences and meditation into its ending, but it remains unpredictable to the last drop, and I doubt there'll be another thriller this year I can say that about.
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