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.

On the set of a movie shooting in town, the boys come across the sight of a dwarf American actor (Jordan Prentice) throws Ray into paroxysms of gawping, un-PC excitement. At the set, Ray is also enchanted by beautiful Chloe (Clemence Poesy), who is not the pure princess she appears to be. A petty grifter herself, she leads him into a fateful barroom brawl and later a gruesome showdown with her partner in crime (Jeremie Renier), posing as her jealous boyfriend.

Martin McDonagh, who scripted the scenes while at the helm, plays two seasoned actors off against each other, creating an involving serio-comic thriller that in a few scenes could have used subtitles given the heavy, barely understandable Dubliner accent. The intent of "In Bruges" is to trigger a dark action comedy, eager to excite the audience with a bold display of bloodshed and cynical musings on Laurel and Hardy hitmen life. And while the roles are big, broad, violent, and strategically funny, McDonagh's story deteriorates into a more unorthodox journey for the characters that involves heavy drug use, Ray's fascination with dwarves, and pie-eyed discussion about the ongoing racial issues between whites and blacks.