After completing a botched assassination in London, hitmen Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) are ordered by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to travel to the old, medieval city of Bruges, Belgium, spend two weeks there, and await further instructions. Ray and Ken are Irishmen, hitmen, and for lack of a better word, friends. Once the pair finally makes their way into Bruges, the problems begin immediately.
Ray, a tortured soul, finds Bruges to be a proverbial hell: he can’t stand the tourism, the people, or anything about the village. Ken, on the other hand, finds the village to be quite charming, taking whole daytrips to sightsee, often dragging the disgruntled Ray along with him. As their encounters with the citizens of the city become increasingly more bizarre, (including a cocaine filled night with an American midget actor shooting a movie, and several prostitutes.) Ray and Ken begin to discover who they really are as people, forming a very strong bond between the two men. But their budding friendship takes a sudden turn for the worse when Harry instructs Ken to murder Ray, the one who botched the assassination.
Academy Award winning director Martin McDonagh makes a very successful directorial debut wit h In Bruges. The writing is quick and funny, and the actors are bang on as far as comic timing goes. Colin Farrell gives a particularly powerful performance as the haunted hitman, and Brendan Gleeson is equally as good as Farrell’s friend/mentor. But the best performance of the film goes to Ralph Fiennes, as the psychotic and hilarious crime boss Harry. His dialog and delivery alone had the audience in stitches.
