In Bruges (2008) by Martin McDonagh

This hilarious, moody, very violent film by writer-director Martin McDonagh is incredibly difficult to characterize. Is it a comedy? An action/heist flick? A downer drama? Hard to say. Whatever it is, it blends elements of all these genres brilliantly, features excellent comic performances by the three leads, and even while you’re cracking up, you may find yourself pondering larger questions of death, morality, and purpose—why we are where we are, both physically and spiritually.

Colin Farrell plays Ray, a young Irish hit man who botched his first job and ended up shooting an innocent young boy. He and his partner, the older, more seasoned Ken (Brendan Gleeson), are packed out of London by their overbearing crime boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes, almost unrecognizable with cockney accent and perpetual sneer) to the quiet Belgian tourist town of Bruges. They are to stay in Bruges until they receive further orders from Harry. They are urged to enjoy their time in the city, which Harry remembers from his childhood as being “like a f—ing fairy tale or something.”

Ken is delighted with the history and architecture of the city and immediately maps out a sightseeing schedule, but Ray is restless, and bored out of his mind. He follows Ken around the city, dragging his feet like a small child. Ken is annoyed, but it’s evident early on that he has a genuine, almost fatherly affection for Ray. Which is why it’s so dismaying when Ken finds out what Harry intended for them in Bruges: he wanted young Ray to enjoy one last holiday, and then he wanted Ken to kill him.

This comes to a head in a hilarious, macabre scene in which Ken marches to a nearby park, weapon in hand, to dispatch his young partner. He finds Ray sitting on a park bench alone, facing away from him. As he picks up his pace, building momentum and pulling out his gun to aim at the unsuspecting Ray, Ray slowly lifts up a gun to his own head. Ken, startled, lowers his own gun and yells out: “No!” He immediately pounces to grab Ray’s away from him and prevent him from killing himself.

It turns out that, despite Ray’s young, devil-may-care attitude, the death of the young boy has affected him deeply. He’s torn up by the immorality of his action, as we see in a scene where he opens up to Ken (at least as much as he is capable).

“He’s dead because of me. And I’m trying to… been trying to get me head around it, but I can’t. I will have always have killed that little boy. That ain’t ever going away. Ever. Unless… maybe I go away.”

He has started to believe, just as Harry does, that “you can’t kill a kid and… live.” And yet, he’s not dead. He’s in Bruges.

This last fact is underscored when he tries, with Ken’s help, to flee Bruges and his own assassination by taking a train out of the city. Within minutes of the train ride, he is promptly returned to Bruges by authorities, seeking him in connection to his punching a Canadian tourist in a restaurant scuffle the night before. As it turns out, Bruges is Ray’s (and later, Ken’s and Harry’s) purgatory—a no man’s land frozen in time and space, an almost-hell, where Ray’s life has stopped dead but he goes on living, existing, with no idea what he can or should do next. “A great day this has turned out to be. I’m suicidal, me mate tries to kill me, me gun gets nicked and we’re still in f—ing Bruges!!!!”

I won’t give away any spoilers, but by the end all three major characters must face death in unique ways—even limbo doesn’t last forever. Or does it? It’s open-ended. Watch and decide for yourself.

This is a unique, and uniquely enjoyable film that, with humor, examines the conscience and the part it plays in our lives, our deaths, and, perhaps most poignantly, whatever comes in between. A word of warning: you must have a fairly high toleration for disturbing violence and extremely thick Irish accents. I occasionally felt like I needed subtitles, particularly for Colin Farrell who, unlike many other Irish actors, doesn’t go to any trouble to filter his speech for American audiences. So no one will judge you if you watch with English captions, especially not me. The film is worth it.