Resenting being stuck in this small town, Ray lights up when he runs into a beautiful blonde Belgian named Chloe (Clemence Poesy) whom he is somehow able to sway and romance despite getting off on the wrong foot with his repeated, highly irreverent reference to a nearby dwarf named Jimmy (Jordan Prentice) as a “midget.” The duo ultimately end up in a party with Jimmy at their hotel room in a night that is filled with alcohol and drugs and hilariously concludes when Jimmy doubts Ray can deliver a karate neck-chop and the latter literally shows the former otherwise.

Any more about the plot I must leave unsaid but what is most fascinating about the film is the way in which writer/director Martin McDonagh (in his first feature film after making the Oscar®-winning short, Six Shooter) uses the various locations in Bruges to subtly transition his story’s tone shifts. Every picturesque location from the pictographic canals to the tall sculpture tower is ripe for comic effect when Ken sees them in awe and Ray with disgust and indifference. Though he depends maybe a bit too much on coincidence to bring all of his characters together, when the various tense and bloody final confrontations arrive and grow organically out of inherent character motivations, we are surprised at the darker weathers these scenic tourist attractions can carry.

Many people may wonder what a movie star like Colin Farrell is doing in a movie like this unless they saw him in another very dark comedy, Intermission. Here, back in his Irish roots, he shows his natural knack for comic timing and balances it with some tearful dramatic moments where he almost reduces himself to a puppy dog if that is possible for a hitman. He is well-matched by Gleeson, who plays just about the most soulful thug you will meet in the movies as he gradually becomes a sympathetic guardian of sorts for Farrell. Meanwhile, when Fiennes finally appears on screen in the last act of the film, he flares his nostrils so menacingly that he looks like the evil Voldemort dropped in the middle of a British crime thriller.

By the film’s end, Ray is still not any happier about being in Bruges and even laments that it is maybe this is what hell is like. What In Bruges makes inherently clear is how creating a hellish situation has nothing to do with the tourist surroundings and everything to do with what the inhabitants make of it. That is another way of saying that everyone should understand what he or she deserves in the end and coming to realize that is what guilt and repentance are all about.

Bottom line: Pretty close to brilliance.