"In Bruges".. Simply Captivating!

Rating: 9/10 (14 March 2010)

I never actually knew who Martin McDonagh (The famous Irish playwright) was before I watched this movie,and i wondered more as i watched specially that the movie is well crafted on all aspects ( acting, directing, writing, camera motion),it seemed it belonged to someone experienced as its so original and on a high level of creativeness.
Probably not so many films, were made in the city of "Bruges", one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen in a movie, the idea of choosing "Bruges" a city that's unknown for a lot of people is brilliant itself, as "Bruges" is the main character, its also so beautiful, calm, and mysterious.
The story of the movie revolves around "Ray" and "Ken", two hit men, who hide in "Bruges" after an almost successful job! "Ray" on his first job does something horrible, makes him feel guilty, which leads him think of death, what's after life.. heaven, hell and purgatory.. he wonders if these things really exist, and discusses that with "Ken".
"Ken" is in some sort of a dilemma, when the boss "Harry" asks him to kill "Ray" because of what he has done. "Ken" has a strong relationship with "Harry", and on the other hand he believes that "Ray" deserves a second chance and might become a better person. Also, "Harry" the boss killed the guy who murdered Ken's wife, the wife that "Ken" truly loved.
The whole idea of the strong bonds between the characters, no matter how are they vicious murderers, might not be so original, but the originality here lies in the amount of sacrifice, and the strong beliefs each of them carry, it also highlights how beliefs and values could be crucial at times, and the paradox in how those murderers can die for the sake of values and beliefs
The Movie discusses through the characters, how the decisions people take can affect their lives, and the way things get complicated because of what they believe in, "Ken" believes that "Ray" deserves a second chance, while "Harry" thinks that he should be killed for what he's done. The main character here which is "Bruges", declares an end for this struggle, having them all killed(we're left to wonder if Ray is actually dead or not) Martin McDonagh's theatrical sense, covered the movie gently with sardonicism , showing every race with significant trait or behavior; The Americans through out the movie are shown as kind of a funny stupid characters(the fat family & the dwarf), the Irish characters themselves are so arrogant, the people of Belgium were so strict and cold, the Jewish character "Yuri" is shown with the "dumb dumb" bullets & the "Uzi".
The camera had the same sense too displaying "Bruges" with all of its mystery and darkness as they walked in the streets also ; *The shot were the dwarf was talking about the war between the blacks and the whites the camera shows us the 2 prostitutes which one of them was African and the other was a European blond, and the two of them doing drugs next to each other! *The other scene in which a dog looks in contempt to "Rey" because of what he has done.
*"Rey" running while bleeding to the location of the dream sequence , meeting people with freaky masks, as an indication of him going to hell.
The dialogue is also remarkable we discover a lot of how these two people view life, "McDonagh" made the dialogue so simple and yet deep, so spontaneous and funny as the characters are talking it was well employed to serve the movie, McDonagh never drifted in long or useless chitchat no matter how tempting it was to do that. Each character had its highly significant style of talking even secondary characters which reminds us of Quentin's style in dialogues. In an interview McDonagh said that it had some influence from Tarantino's style, but he said that he decided to take it somewhere deeper.
You can't talk about all of this and neglect the awesome soundtrack by Carter Burwell, the movie might have been a little less brilliant if it wasn't for Burwell's music. Throughout the film we find the music describing feelings of guilt, sadness,fear and the intimidating beauty of the city of "Bruges". Burwell was there and ready for the shift, when the scenes got more fast and were full of action in the chase scene between "Ray" and "Harry".
Mcdonagh is a great movie director, who for some reason his work in theater seems to be smoother than film making, although he said he always wanted to become a movie director, we need to see more of his works the coming years or i'll go crazy! The Movie is simply captivating the same way the city of "Bruges" is in-reality and in the movie that non of the characters came out of there and so did I!