Ten Years Ago, ‘In Bruges’ Did The ‘Three Billboards’ Thing Better Than ‘Three Billboards’

A decade ago, Martin McDonagh was only known for his work as a playwright. Though using the word “only” there is a bit misleading, as it implies a certain minor quality to his work. In truth, McDonagh was a wildly acclaimed playwright, with shows like The Cripple of InishmaanThe Lieutenant of Inishmore, and The Pillowman, stories predominantly about Ireland and classism and hitmen and violence against children. Not always the nicest plays but compelling ones and with a hugely recognizable signature style. Still, it marked a kind of leveling up in 2008 when McDonagh wrote and directed his first film, the hitman comedy-drama In Bruges.

In Bruges is one of those movies that way more people have seen and loved than you’d think. Focus Features opened it small, on February 8, 2008. it never played on more than 225 screens, and made just under $8 million at the box office. But it was unquestionably a hit with critics (84% on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences (86% audience score), as small as those audiences started out as. It’s the kind of movie that other people are surprised you’ve seen, but they’re happy to be able to share in their love for it. As small as it was, it was at least marketed and campaigned well enough that Colin Farrell won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a comedy/musical. It was the tiny movie that it turns out everyone liked.

In terms of McDonagh’s career, In Bruges was a huge boon, leading to his follow-up film, Seven Psychopaths, which made double what In Bruges did and co-starred Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, and Abbie Cornish, all three of whom would return for McDonagh’s third feature film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. With its American setting, confrontational subject matter, and particularly with the divisiveness and anger it’s inspired in its many detractors, Three Billboards is in many ways the complete opposite of In Bruges. But re-watching In Bruges for its 10th anniversary, it’s surprising just how much both films have in common … and how much more effective In Bruges is at navigating the most contentious aspects of the film that may well end up winning Best Picture.

In Bruges is about two hitmen from Ireland, Ray (Colin Farrell) and his mentor Ken (Brendan Gleeson), who are sent by their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), to cool their heels in Bruges, Belgium, after an incident. We eventually find out that the incident was that Ray accidentally shot and killed a young schoolboy while he was carrying out an execution on a priest. Ray is wracked with guilt, but he’s also mostly a young shit, so his guilt gets covered up by a lot of acting out. Ken, meanwhile, is long-suffering and endlessly patient, though he’s also haunted by his past (his wife was murdered many years ago, a killing avenged by Harry, which earned Ken’s forever loyalty). Their adventures in Bruges have a shaggy quality to them, until the plot tightens up when Harry orders Ken to assassinate Ray in order to clean up the loose ends from the dead kid. Ken then has to save Ray and deal with Harry’s wrath.

Ray seeking redemption and absolution for his unforgivable act is a cornerstone of In Bruges, just as Sam Rockwell’s deputy Dixon seeking some kind of redemption for his own history of reprehensible actions (both in the past and very recent). For any number of reasons, this works out very smoothing for Farrell’s In Bruges character. For one thing, he’s more likeable. His biggest transgression was accidental (though during the commission of the crime of murdering a priest, so certainly not blameless), and his shithead behavior is comparatively mild. He gets in bar fights and does a bunch of drugs, but mostly he just says a whole bunch of ignorant things. One common thread between both films is that McDonagh gets a whole lot of mileage out of his protagonists saying fucked-up things about marginalized groups. Ray slags off American tourists for being fat, calls another character a “poof” (derogatory Brit slang for gay), and makes a bunch of jokes at the expense of a dwarf and some prostitutes he meets. Of course, in classic McDonagh style, that poof is a skinhead, and that dwarf is a racist. You could certainly say that In Bruges gets away with all this because it doesn’t have to be under the social-media microscope of being an Oscar frontrunner. But there’s also an elegance to the way In Bruges moves Ray through his journey. In Billboards, Dixon is an outright monster right up until the instant that the film begins asking its audience to reconsider him. Farrell’s performance, meanwhile, shows a character wrestling with deep regret throughout.

Billboards is not necessarily a worse film than In Bruges, but it’s definitely one that puts up more of a barrier between it and its audience. Frances McDormand’s character is set up as a righteous, crusading, grieving mother, and when she and Dixon are stacked up against each other, their sins and transgressions compared and contrasted, McDonagh seems to be making a big statement about the futility of anger and payback. In In Bruges, he’s telling a simpler story, with one man seeking (and just as often running away from) redemption, while Ken, while still a hitman, remains a good and loyal character.

There’s also the fact that In Bruges isn’t trampling around in American social politics the way Three Billboards is. The latter has gotten a lot of heat for clumsily stumbling around American racial dynamics without truly taking the time to engage with them. Certainly, In Bruges goes down a lot easier in that regard, not having to deal with American socio-political issues at all.

It’s impossible to tell how a movie like In Bruges would be received today, but watching it again ten years later, it’s still an incredibly likeable movie, and one that probably should have gotten at least a fraction of the Oscar love that Three Billboards is getting. Farrell won the Golden Globe, and McDonagh got a screenplay nomination, but these were crumbs for a movie that distilled McDonagh’s provocative ideas in such a zippy, funny, endearing package.

Stream In Bruges on Amazon Prime with the Starz subscription