Review: In Bruges – A Meditation Derailed by Its Own Ending

 

Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges begins with the quiet promise of something rare—a character-driven exploration of guilt, morality, and emotional consequence set against the eerie stillness of an ancient European city. It is, for most of its runtime, an oddly poetic film: a slow-burn crime story that eschews bravado in favor of confession, melancholy, and mood.

 

Two hitmen—Ray, impulsive and wracked with guilt, and Ken, older and more reflective—are sent to the medieval city of Bruges to lay low after a job in London goes wrong. What unfolds in the first two acts is an unexpectedly rich meditation on sin, penance, and the aching search for redemption. Bruges, with its gothic architecture and ghostly canals, becomes more than a setting; it becomes a kind of purgatory, both literal and symbolic, where the weight of past actions lingers in every stone.

 

Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are exceptional. Gleeson gives Ken a quiet nobility, while Farrell—raw, self-loathing, and occasionally hilarious—makes Ray into a portrait of remorse. Their interplay is steeped in weariness and dark humor, with scenes that touch on everything from suicide and art to the absurdities of moral codes among criminals.

 

Then comes the final act.

 

In the last fifteen minutes, the film abandons much of what made it special. What began as a subtle, textured character study gives way to a loud, allegorical unraveling. The violence escalates, not in service of character, but in service of a moral structure that feels more imposed than earned. The ending, symbolic and brutal, lands with a thud rather than a sting.

 

McDonagh seems to double down on metaphor—themes of purgatory, rigid moral codes, visual symbolism—but by doing so, he sacrifices emotional closure. The film’s final line, “I really hoped I didn’t die,” is deliberately inconclusive. And while ambiguity can be powerful, here it feels like avoidance. The transformation we’d invested in never fully arrives, and the narrative’s emotional integrity buckles beneath the weight of its own theatrical irony.

 

In the end, In Bruges is a film of two halves: the first is masterful, absorbing, and moving; the second, overreaching and hollow. It is an experience that invites reflection—but ultimately, for some, may feel like a journey that betrays the promise it so carefully constructed.

 

Director: Martin McDonagh

Cast: 

Colin Farrell (Ray)

Brendan Gleeson (Ken)
Clémence Poésy (Chloe)

Jeremie Renier (Eirik)

Ralph Fiennes (Harry)

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