Bumbling Hit Men Score a Bull's-Eye in Darkly Droll 'Bruges'

Let's face it: If there were as many hit men in the real world as in movies over the past 20 years, there'd be no need for assisted living, titanium hip replacements or Flomax. Most of us, at some time or other, would have done something to someone worthy of a hired killing -- especially given the glut of unemployed gunmen who'd be wandering around, looking for work and underbidding each other.

In movieland, hit men are legion, because for most moviemakers they represent a shortcut to a crisis of conscience. What they represent to writer-director Martin McDonagh is an opportunity to take potshots at the system. The dramatic system. The system that says a movie must go this way, then that, and leave us in a comfortable place, via a comfortable route.

Many filmmakers have become intoxicated with the chance to alter formula, and stumbled. McDonagh -- the two-time Olivier Award-winning, four-time Tony-nominated playwright ("The Beauty Queen of Leenane") making his first feature film -- succeeds with "In Bruges," a dry, wine-dark comedy powered by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, two wry Irishmen who have seldom had quite the opportunity to be as hilariously clueless as their characters Ray and Ken.

The pair -- reminiscent of Pacino and Hackman in "Scarecrow" -- find themselves in Bruges, the Flemish port city known for its medieval architecture and bell tower (yaaaawn). Ken (Gleeson) is willing to make the best of it. Ray (Farrell), not so much. "If I grew up on a farm and was retarded," Ray says, "Bruges might impress me."

But while Ray may be restless, it's his fault they're here. Ken and Ray have been remanded to Bruges by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), because when Ray executed a priest in a church confessional he also put a bullet in the head of a little boy at prayer.

Those who know McDonagh's work from the stage know that a vein of darkness will run deeply through the comedy. It's seldom been darker. Or funnier.

And that's the thing. One of McDonagh's gifts is knowing that the darker the subtext, the more outrageous the lines can be, because what would ordinarily seem offensive becomes insignificant in light of a true disaster: the unintentional murder of a child. "They're filmin' midgets!" Ray exclaims when he and Ken stumble across a film set and he spots dwarf actor Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), who is into recreational horse tranquilizers ("You can't be givin' horse tranquilizers to midgets!" Ray wails).

Ray displays all the guileless incorrectness of a 4-year-old walking in on his naked grandmother; it's clear that Farrell -- never better, never more charming -- is playing a wounded naif with a load of guilt he can never carry. And we share a little of that guilt when we laugh at his lines.

Gleeson is a malleable, potent actor, too. Ken, the experienced killer, is a mentor for Ray. Harry, who is all business, is also a thug with a code of honor. If he had killed a boy in church, he would have "topped" himself, he says, "right on the spot." So when Ken is told to kill Ray, and Ken instead lets him get away (this is not a plot spoiler), he also knows the code: He's perfectly willing to let Harry kill him, for not killing Ray.

But would McDonagh ever let that happen? He believes in fate, but not a fate that can be surrendered to, or controlled through acquiescence. That would signify too much power on the part of man.

There's a love interest in "Bruges" -- which arises during that period when Ray and Ken are waiting for Harry to call, a sequence in which McDonagh's talents shine. It's not a plot-driven passage, it's the opposite -- boredom-driven, maybe. The weirdnesses that accumulate in this limbo section of the film (Dutch prostitutes, dwarves, hilariously distracted-but-character-revealing conversation, and the shady Chloe, played by Cl¿mence Po¿sy) are entertaining.

But the dialogue Gleeson and Farrell are given makes language something to cherish. Not just that, but McDonagh has made a hit-man movie in which you genuinely don't know what's going to happen, and can't wait to find out. The contract killer might be a cliche elsewhere, but not in Bruges.

In Bruges (107 minutes, at Regal Gallery Place and Landmark's Bethesda Row) is rated R for strong bloody violence, pervasive profanity and some drug use.