Film Friday: In Bruges

Promotional image from In Bruges (2008). Dir Martin McDonagh.

I have a fondness for films (and books, TV series, etc) that play with the conventions of a genre. I like the sudden shifts in mood and perspective, the unexpected bending of familiar tropes, the breaking of anticipated patterns.

I like In Bruges.

The film debut of Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (he wrote and directed), In Bruges is at heart a morality play that explores how far a person must go to follow their moral code, and whether — or how — one can obtain redemption.

The film starts with an immediate jolt. Over shots of medieval church interiors and deserted cobbled streets, a man’s voice says “After I’d killed him, I dropped the gun in the Thames, washed the residue off my hands in the bathroom of a Burger King, and walked home to await instructions.”

The speaker (Colin Farrell) is Ray, a first-time hit-man. The “kill” was supposed to be a paedophile priest, but it has gone spectacularly wrong. The instructions are to get out of London and go to Bruges.

Accompanying Ray is Ken (played by the magnificent Brendan Gleeson), an older, wiser fellow hit-man who attempts to make the best of their exile by insisting the pair go sightseeing.

What follows is funny and poignant and sad and, for me at least, quite unexpected.

In Bruges could be a formulaic comedy caper, but is much cleverer. At moments, it could be a Tarantino film, but the characters are far too achingly real and ordinary. It could be a gore-fest — and there is considerable violence (unsurprising given Ray and Ken’s career choice) — but it is held by a thread of morality and beliefs about what is right.

Towards the end of the film when Ray and his borderline psychopathic boss (played by Ralph Fiennes) engage in a shoot-out, they first agree to literally “take it outside” to protect a pregnant woman from stray bullets. This involves a funny and very child-like squabble about counting to ten before either of them shoots.

In Bruges delighted me because it has an intelligent script, with something to actually say, and it puts the words into the mouths of intelligent, talented actors. Of the three leads, I think Brendon Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes are so good I’d pay to watch them watching paint dry. Of Colin Farrell, I had mixed feelings, but in the end I think he inhabited the character so well that I believed in it and actually cared what happened to him. Which I’m not going to tell you.

Martin McDonagh has gone on to make two other feature films; Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The latter is, in my opinion, brilliant and would make a wonderful double feature with In Bruges.

Just sayin’

About Film Friday

Sarah at Art Expedition, and Darren, The Arty Plantsman have initiated this great new blogging project. You can find out more and see their chosen films by visiting their blogs.

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