In his first effort in feature filmmaking Martin McDonagh racked up numerous accolades – including an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay – with this delightfully-black comedy about a pair of Irish hitmen hiding out in Bruges after a botched mission. Giving two nuanced performances Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play hitmen Ray and Ken; Ken enchanted by Bruges’ medieval culture, Ray disinterested, petulant, and rapidly breaking down in response to recent tragedies. Allowing the sacred and profane to blend together, questions of suicide and criminal ethics quickly become involved in a madcap plot involving incompetent local thieves, a drug-addled dwarf, and temperamental tourists. The late arrival of Ralph Fiennes as a psychotic crimelord intent on visiting brutal justice upon the pair completes this inventive thriller that, despite its black comic vein, is deeply humane.