Fear and Loathing In Bruges

Rating: 9/10 (12 June 2008)

Martin McDonagh, in his first feature film, has created one hell of an introduction. The movie is not complex, at first, as two hit men are sent to Bruges to wait for their orders after a hit goes terribly wrong. Bruges is in Belgium, by the way. It's a beautiful medieval city that lifts off the screen with gorgeous cinematography. It's hard to imagine a city so aesthetically pleasing with its towers, canals, and scenery that most would cherish.
One of the hit men is Ray (Colin Farrell) and the other is Ken (Brenden Gleeson). Ray finds Bruges to be old and boring while Ken admires the architecture with wondrous eyes. As they wait for their orders we have a lot of comedic banter with a setting Quentin Tarantino could write dialogue for days with. It takes about twenty minutes into the film when the action and the plot start to pull all the strings together with a hit; in a church of all places. This is Ray's first hit. The scene starts, through a flashback, with Ray confessing to a murder that will take place in the not so distant feature. He tells the priest, "I've murdered someone." The priest asks, "Who did you murder?" Ray responds with, "You, Father." As the bullets start to fly a life is taken. More importantly an innocent life - a young boy's life. The boy is on his knees as he just finished writing his confession for all the bad things he did.
This sets into place a string of events involving characters recognizing their own absurdity in certain situations (they call them principles). The humor is dark and extremely effective, mostly coming from Ray. At some point in the film, I was laughing so hard I missed the next lines. It truly is laugh-out-loud funny. Farrell is perfect with his childish delivery, batting eyebrows and high pitched squeaking sounds to emphasize certain words. Farrell does an excellent job as and makes you feel for his characters pain immensely as he agonizes over the little boy's death. Both of these actors work exceptionally well off one another and both give heart felt performances.
Do hit men such as these have moral boundaries? Do they cross them? Do they stand by their word, and more importantly, do they do what they say they would do when the gun is put to their own head? Ethics would never come into play with hit men in most films, but these men have boundaries and their word means something to them.
Henry (Ralph Fiennes) is the leader of these two hit men and he sent both to Bruges to wait for his orders after the tragic hit in the church. For the first 2/3 of the film we only hear him over the phone and he brings dark humor into the picture as well. The writing is fantastic as certain characters constantly repeat themselves and say the same thing multiple times. It sounds musical and so rhythmic with the delivery and the repetition. Fiennes is terrific. He and Ken have a couple of great scenes together in the final act. It's acting at its finest.
The direction overall is extremely well done. After the film settles in it takes off and most of that is due in large part by the gorgeous cinematography and the great score lifting the film to the heights that it will stay at for the rest of the film. As the film progresses it gets better and better and better. You'll find yourself gradually becoming more and more involved with the outcome of the characters. "In Bruges" is a dark and funny film that's engaging till the end with an engrossing plot and characters. The best movie of 2008.