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BY MAGGIE SCOTT

A medieval town works its magic on a pair of hit men ordered to lay low after a problematic job in London, in the drama In Bruges. A latter day Laurel and Hardy when first met, the couple consists of a seasoned assassin and a newbie, whose sense of geographical and social dislocation has set him to whining.

Ken (Brendan Gleeson) is keeping a congenial, but firm, thumb on Ray (Colin Farrell), who isn’t feeling the spiritual high of his companion as Ken waxes more and more awed by the city’s 12th century architecture, church reliquaries, art masterpieces and scenic canals.

Ray wants nothing more than a pint and some female companionship, supplied one misty night in the person of Chloe (Clemence Poesy), a comely assistant on a film crew shooting a “dream sequence” with a snide dwarf (Jordan Prentice); who calls the movie “trumped up Euro trash.”

It looks like it could turn into something more than a fling in a foreign land. But only after she comes clean about her ulterior motives for taking him home to her bed; and only after he starts to deal with the tormented guilt and grief he feels,—when visions of the lifeless form of a child caught in a hail of bullets flash before his eyes.

Ken tries to put some perspective on the tragedy, but Ray can’t get past the fact that no matter how much time goes by, no matter how far away from the small, cold body he runs, he will “always have killed that little boy. It won’t go away unless I go away.”

Ray isn’t the only one thinking of putting a bullet in his skull. Ken’s boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) has decided there has to be a reckoning for the boy’s death. Although “it’s what he does,” Ken can’t pull the trigger on Ray; and won’t let Ray pull the trigger, either.

Bruges has awakened in Ken a renewed sense of his own humanity and the belief that Ray is worth more alive, to hopefully help the next young person avoid the randomness of violence.

Director Martin McDonagh mixes up the action and the tone of this buddy film noir with black humor and off-kilter sillies jarred by no-holds-barred blood-letting. His portrait of two men discovering they aren’t “cut out” for cold-blooded murder, but are willing to risk their lives for each other, is poignant, hilarious and ultimately uplifting. A Focus Features release, rated R for strong violence, language, some drug use, sexual content.
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