n the blatently violent "In Bruges", writer-director Martin McDonagh uses funny and lovable buddy hit-men to explore agonizing questions of sin and redemption. After a botched killing in London, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) blow into Bruges, Belgium, like a breath of stale air. Ken essentially is babysitting Ray for mob boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) until the heat cools down or he figures out what to do with him. They must hide out somewhere for a while until the heat dies down, quite specifically, in this antiquated Belgian town.

Bruges is a small Belgian city dating to the medieval era, about 60 miles from Brussels and not very far from the narrowest part of the English Channel. Its central district is a tourist attraction, with its medieval architecture lovingly preserved. It’s beautiful. It’s quaint. It’s crushingly boring. Ray would clearly like to be somewhere else, “some country where there isn’t all this fucking chocolate.”

It's a cute fish-out-of-water template. While Ray is a young trigger-happy psycho looking for a girl, or perhaps another pint of stout; soulful Ken, on the other hand, is well into middle age, with a more reflective temperament. He’s delighted to be drinking up the town’s preening quaintness and well-preserved medieval architecture.

A pair of Canadian diners seated next to Ray get punched unconscious because they complain about his cigarette smoke.