"In Bruges": review

I'm not sure a movie like 2008's "In Bruges" could even be made in today's oversensitive political and social climate. One of our two often-hilarious main characters is a vaguely racist homophobe and fat-phobe who proves to be unhealthily obsessed with dwarves, and the story's main villain isn't so different. That said, I enjoyed the movie because I still have a sense of humor. "In Bruges" is written and directed by Martin McDonagh (the guy behind the interestingly nuanced "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), and it stars Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Clémence Poésy.

The story is about two hit men who, after a job goes wrong, are instructed by their perpetually angry boss Harry (Fiennes) to go to Bruges, Belgium, to await further instructions. Ray (Farrell) hates Bruges immediately, calling it a shithole within the first few seconds of the film's beginning. Ken (Gleeson)—older, somewhat wiser, and more open-minded—loves the city right away—its canals, its bridges, its medieval-era buildings. Bruges radiates an ancient charm that takes Ken in but utterly alienates Ray. Ray ends up meeting Chloë (Poésy), initially thinking she's part of a film crew, but eventually learning she's actually a dealer/scammer. Ray also discovers the film crew in town includes a dwarf named Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), and Jimmy's presence proves utterly fascinating to Ray, who is otherwise completely bored with Bruges. Ken, meanwhile, is content to tour the town quietly and await a call from Harry. When the call comes, Harry tells Ken that he and Ray are there so that Ken can kill Ray, who had botched his first assassination job by accidentally killing a little boy, something Harry (who has a family) finds unforgivable. Ray himself is prone to occasional, teary bouts of remorse about what he did, and as the plot unfolds, we discover he's suicidal. The plot of "In Bruges" comes together slowly, and it's only when we're a bit past the halfway point that Ken learns his true mission, prepares to kill Ray in a park, then suddenly shifts gears when he sees Ray pull out a pistol and try to shoot himself in the head. Ken stops Ray, and now the film's central conflict becomes clear: Ken has disobeyed Harry's orders, and now Harry, angry and sinister, will come to Bruges himself to resolve things.

Tonally, "In Bruges" is all over the place. I guess you could describe it as a black comedy because it's pretty damn funny. And yet, the musical soundtrack accompanying the action is almost always quiet and meditative, especially as the movie gently chews over some fairly deep themes like hell and judgment for wickedness, and whether redemption is possible. A lot of these themes are fairly bog-standard for hitman movies, but "In Bruges" deals with them in an idiosyncratic, intelligent way.

One of the more interesting aspects of the story is how Harry is revealed to us over the course of the film. At first, Harry is unseen—we hear of him; we hear about what he's said; we even get a transcribed message from him. We then hear Harry's voice over the phone when he talks to Ken and gives Ken his new marching orders, and finally, somewhere around the film's final third, we get to see Harry as he leaves his family in England and comes to Bruges. From the moment we see him, Harry dominates the plot. You'd think that this sort of slow reveal wouldn't work, but for the quirkiness of the story we witness, it's surprisingly effective.

Comedy in "In Bruges" comes from the conflict between and among the main characters, the casual (and constant) vulgarity of the dialogue, and the weird sense of honor that binds the characters together. For viewers in the 2020s, there's a certain Tarantino-like awkwardness that arises when we realize we like certain characters either in spite of or because of their casual racism. Ray—young, twitchy, and impulsive—is arguably the film's main focus (even though Ken gets some of the film's most gut-busting—and poignant—moments), and he's established early on as an ignorant bigot, yet for us viewers, he comes off as likable. I also have to note that, when I saw this film years ago, the notion of Ralph Fiennes doing comedy was a revelation to me. Fiennes's Harry is as vulgar and volatile as every other character in this film, but he operates according to a rigid code of honor that makes him strangely civil during moments when you'd think he'd explode into violence. I had to remind myself that this wasn't a Scorsese movie; "In Bruges" is a mutant variant of the British-gangster subgenre (think: "Snatch," "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels," "Peaky Blinders," "Bronson," etc.). 

To illustrate: below is quite possibly my favorite bit of dialogue from the film. Had this been an American gangster film, bullets would have been flying, and blood would have been spattering. Not in this movie. To set the scene: Harry, furious at being disobeyed, has arrived in Bruges and acquired a gun from his local contact. As he's stalking through the town square, he spots Ken sitting outside with a drink. Harry reins in his temper, comes over, and has a sit-down with Ken, but things get acrimonious:

HARRY: Excuse me, Ken. I have the capacity to change.
KEN: Yeah, you do. You've the capacity to get fucking worse!
HARRY: Ah, yeah, now we're gettin' down to it!
KEN: Harry, let's face it. And I'm not bein' funny—I mean no disrespect, but you're a cunt. You're a cunt now; you've always been a cunt. And the only thing that's gonna change is that you're gonna become an even bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids.
HARRY: Leave my kids fucking out of it. What have they done? You fucking retract that bit about my cunt fucking kids!
KEN: I retract that bit about your cunt fucking kids.
HARRY: Insulting my fucking kids! That's goin' overboard, mate!

KEN: I retracted it, didn't I? Still leaves you being a cunt.

HARRY: I fucking got that!

It may be funnier to watch than to read: Gleeson and Fiennes are both excellent in this scene, which somehow balances comedy with pathos and tension because, as Ken knows, Harry is in town to kill Ken for disobedience.

The movie sports a religious—specifically Catholic—undercurrent, and not to put too fine a point on it, but the city of Bruges itself becomes a symbol for purgatory, that liminal middle space in the traditional, three-tiered cosmology of Catholic thought: hell, purgatory, heaven. If the film's primary theme is about how we pay for our sins, it's interesting to see how the roles of judge and executioner seem to shift from character to character. Also adding a layer of subtle humor is the fact that our main characters—all of them—are not even close to being thoughtful enough to properly appreciate the profundity of their situation.

I won't spoil the movie's ending—the plot contains enough twists to keep the viewer guessing—but suffice it to say that the film's final scene is open to interpretation as to what happens next. In the final analysis, despite Harry and his rigid principles and Ray's wild amorality, it may be Ken's quiet sense of principles that grounds the film and provides some hope that, in the end, everything will be all right.

See "In Bruges" if you have the chance. It's got a lot of rough language, but the film is a master class in how it balances grim and comic tones as well as profound moral issues and goofy, brutish superficiality. Watch it for the hilarious and tragic turns by Gleeson and Farrell, and be amazed that Ralph Fiennes isn't involved in more comedies.*

__________

*I know he's done "The Grand Budapest Hotel" (very quickly reviewed here) where he was once again hilarious, and that he's voiced certain animated characters, but his overall filmography tends toward the deadly serious.