'In Bruges' (18) Starring Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson

In Bruges marks the feature length debut of Martin McDonagh, better known as a vastly successful UK playwright.  Utilising his theatrical senses of location and dialogue liberally in this cinematic effort, McDonagh also borrows a firearm-focus from his Oscar-winning short film, 2004’s Six Shooter.  A healthy dose of black humour and the portly Brendan Gleeson are also retained from that Ireland-set effort, but the scenery of McDonagh’s follow-up is vastly different.

Not that Farrell’s Ray is particularly pleased about it. While his co-hitman Ken (Gleeson) cheerily tours the quaint Belgian city’s churches, canals and cobbled streets, the younger killer complains noisily, in the manner of a spoilt child but with that adorable Irish accent, about the “fucking shithole” he must endure. For the pair are in Bruges not out of choice, but under order from their angry boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes), lying low after a botched job where Ray unwittingly assassinated a young boy as well his target.

Ray’s ennui soon leads to absurd and wonderful trouble. Before long he is cajoling American tourists, shooting blanks into the eye of a Russian skinhead and dating a local drug dealer, Chloë (an appealing blithe Clémence Poésy). Meanwhile, Harry himself threatens to turn up if Ken doesn’t fulfil an unpleasant order: knock off his junior partner. Despite his risible hatred for the place, Bruges is to be a pre-death treat for the culpable Ray.

And so McDonagh’s film begins a curious double life: part grisly, fabulous comedy, and part melancholic meditation on death, a contrast chiefly represented via the bipolar moods of Farrell’s fresh-faced foulmouth.  When not reflecting tearfully – in rather clammy moments - on his grave mistake, Ray is carefree, uproariously denouncing the local scenery or gleefully getting into capers and scrapes while utterly fuddled.

In the end, glum mortality wins the day and an inevitably butch denouement takes shape to the tune of baleful pianos. But prior to that there are plenty of priceless scenes, not least when Ken, Ray and Jimmy (Jordan Prentice) – a racist, thespian dwarf – share cocaine and prostitutes before an impromptu karate battle.  With such inventive set pieces, this is riotous, Carry On-style silliness, and all the more delicious in such a fusty setting.

Fiennes’ crimelord is an unlikely Flemish fan, unexpectedly labelling Bruges “beautiful fucking fairy-tale stuff” as he finally arrives, injecting some much-needed pep. His Harry – aren’t all gangsters called Harry? – is an electric mix of effete honour, plain nastiness and lingering insecurity, as easily offended as he is fond of the F-word. Best of all, he’s a staple cinema villain to the point of pastiche - asked to lower his gun at the end by a bystander, Harry responds: “Don’t be silly – this is the shoot-out”.

In the end, as blood spills on the snowy Markt Square and the bell tower tolls, it’s hard to know what to make of In Bruges. McDonagh is at once delivering a tragi-comedy with an Irish lilt, a Guy Ritchie movie on holiday and an existentialist essay doused in jovial humour. His film struggles to make a case for emotional investment - it’s never easy to sympathise with clinical hitmen, even when this cuddly - but fares far better in comic mode, thanks both to its unlikely geography and Farrell’s terrific performance.