"Maybe that’s what hell is: the entire rest of eternity spent in f***ing Bruges."
Masterpiece of black comedy. It is not just a film about hitmen; it is a profound study of guilt, redemption, and the agonizing "in-between" of existence, set against the Gothic backdrop of Belgium's best-preserved medieval city.
"An endlessly surprising, very dark, human comedy, with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished. When it's funny, it's hilarious; when it's serious, it's powerful; and either way, it's an endless pleasant surprise."
You may know that Bruges, Belgium, is pronounced "broozh," but I didn't, and the heroes of "In Bruges" certainly don't. They're Dublin hit- men, sent there by their boss for two weeks after a hit goes very wrong. One is a young hothead who sees no reason to be anywhere but Dublin; the other, older, gentler, more curious, buys a guidebook and announces: "Bruges is the best-preserved medieval city in Belgium!"
So it certainly seems. If the movie accomplished nothing else, it inspired in me an urgent desire to visit Bruges. But it accomplished a lot more than that. This film debut by the theater writer and director Martin McDonagh is an endlessly surprising, very dark, human comedy, with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished. Every once in a while you find a film like this, that seems to happen as it goes along, driven by the peculiarities of the characters.
Brendan Gleeson, with that noble shambles of a face and the heft of a boxer gone to seed, has the key role as Ken, one of two killers for hire. His traveling companion and unwilling roommate is Ray (Colin Farrell), who successfully whacked a priest in a Dublin confessional but tragically killed a little boy in the process. Before shooting the priest, he confessed to the sin he was about to commit. After accidentally killing the boy, he reads the notes the lad made for his own confession. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
There he meets two fascinating characters: First he sees the fetching young blond Chloe (Clemence Poesy, who was Fleur Delacour in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"). Then he sees Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), a dwarf who figures in a dream sequence. He gets off on a bad footing with both, but eventually they're doing cocaine with a prostitute Jimmy picked up and have become friends, even though Ray keeps calling the dwarf a "midget" and having to be corrected.
Without dreaming of telling you what happens next, I will say it is not only ingenious but almost inevitable the way the screenplay brings all of these destinies together at one place and time. Along the way, there are times of great sadness and poignancy, times of abandon, times of goofiness, and that kind of humor that is really funny because it grows out of character and close observation. Farrell in particular hasn't been this good in a few films, perhaps because this time he's allowed to relax and be Irish. As for Gleeson, if you remember him in "The General," you know that nobody can play a more sympathetic bad guy.
Yes, it's a "thriller," but one where the ending seems determined by character and upbringing rather than plot requirements. Two of the final deaths are, in fact, ethical choices. And the irony inspiring the second one has an undeniable logic, showing that even professional murderers have their feelings.
Release date: February 8, 2008 (USA)
The Setting: It’s a place "in-between"—not quite the real world, but a preserved medieval relic. Ray even remarks, "A lot of people die in Bruges."
The Judgment: The characters are constantly faced with symbols of judgment. In the Groeninge Museum, they view Hieronymus Bosch’s The Last Judgment. Ken notes the detail of the scales, while Ray is fixated on the "monsters" and the "unbelievable" nature of the afterlife.
The Residents: The "weird" cast of characters they meet—the dwarf actor Jimmy, the drug-dealing Chloë, and the aggressive Canadian tourists—act as tests or witnesses to their character. Jimmy, in particular, represents a surreal, drug-fueled nihilism that mirrors Ray's internal chaos.
The Exit: Ray’s final internal monologue summarizes this: "I really hoped I wouldn't die. I really, really hoped I wouldn't die. Even if I'm not a good man. I've learned that... I really wanted to live."
The "McDonagh Style"
The brilliance of the film lies in Martin McDonagh’s dialogue. It manages to be profanely funny one moment (Ray’s rants about Americans) and heartbreakingly sincere the next (Ken’s fatherly protection of Ray). It balances high-concept crime drama with the "theatre of the absurd."
It earned Colin Farrell a Golden Globe for Best Actor and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. It cemented the Gleeson/Farrell/McDonagh trio as one of the best collaborations in modern cinema—a partnership they revisited over a decade later in The Banshees of Inisherin (2022).
The Ending: Ambiguity vs. Redemption
The ending remains ambiguous. Ray is loaded into an ambulance, his survival uncertain. However, the true "ending" is Ray's change of heart. For the first time since the accident, he wants to live. Whether he survives the gunshot wounds or finally "descends" depends entirely on your interpretation of whether his newfound desire for life is enough to grant him redemption.
Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Well, they have the title right. I don’t know how these people found one another, but they certainly belong on the same list. They all have roles in a screenplay titled “Seven Psychopaths,” which is under development by a writer named Marty Faranan, played by Colin Farrell. In Hollywood, “under development” means “all I have is the title.”
Written and directed by Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges“), this is a delightfully goofy, self-aware movie that knows it is a movie. You’ve heard of a movie within a movie? I think this is a movie without a movie. Some of it happens to Marty, some of it happens in Marty’s imagination, and some of it seems to happen in one category and then invades another.
The film’s climax takes place in the archetypal desert hills of a B-Western, where Marty, Billy and Hans find themselves hiding out from the relentless Charlie with the Shih Tzu. The logic of this action, which circles around the question of who can be trusted by whom, and for whose reasons, is sort of an elaboration of the elegant geometry in the Mexican Standoff in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
A doctor informs Donnelly that his wife died in the morning and the doctor brings Donnelly to his wife's beside to say goodbye. A sad train journey leads to an encounter with a strange and psychotic young oddball.
