A fairy tale about a fairy-tale city

Rating: 9/10 (20 April 2008)

In Bruges (2008), written and directed by Martin McDonagh, stars Colin Farrell as Ray and Brendan Gleeson as Ken. These two professional killers have been sent to Bruges to lie low after a killing-gone-wrong. Their boss is Harry, played by Ralph Fiennes, who follows their progress by phone from England.
Ray is hyperactive, depressed, and hates Bruges. Ken can actually enjoy the wonders of Bruges, even though it's just a stop on the road to the next killing. Clémence Poésy is Chloë, a woman who hangs around movie sets to deal drugs and offer her body as enticement to the unwary.
I've been to Bruges twice, and it's probably the most enchanting city I've ever seen. It's called the Sleeping Beauty city because progress passed it by, and there was no incentive to tear down the old and build the new. By the time people got around to modernizing Bruges, they understood the value of a city preserved as if in amber, and they left it the way it was. (You actually get a pretty good tour of Bruges in the movie, and it looks beautiful. That's the point--it's a beautiful city in which terrible things are happening.)
The terrible things naturally involve Ray, Ken, Harry, Chloë, and other lowlife types as well. What makes the story a fairy tale is that all kinds of mayhem take place on the streets and in the houses of Bruges, and no one except the main characters appears to notice. People shoot at each other, coins rain down from a tower, and a police officer never appears. Bruges has police, and they intervene there as they would intervene anywhere else. You have to suspend disbelief to accept their absence in the film.
Despite this lack of realism, the movie is both a powerful psychological study and a real thriller. It's definitely worth seeking out in a theater, and will work fairly well on the small screen as well. See it!