If there was ever such a thing as the perfect motion picture, then this, in my opinion, is it. Written and directed by award-winning playwright Martin McDonagh (The Lieutenant Of Inishmore; The Pillowman) it’s the story of Ken, a Dublin hitman (poignantly rendered by Brendan Gleeson) and his protégé, Ray (cheekily realised by Colin Farrell) who, after a hit goes tragically wrong, are dispatched by their nutbag sociopath London boss, Harry (one of Ralph Fiennes best performances), to the somewhat surreal medieval Belgian town of Bruges, home to a stash of crazy paintings by that even crazier dude Hieronymus Bosch. Here, they’ve been ordered to get their minds in order and lay low. Even so, the pair soon fall foul of, among many others, an obnoxious racist American dwarf (Jordan Prentis), a snide local drug-dealing hooker (Clémence Poésy) and her pimp boyfriend, and Canadian tourists and obese Americans and arms dealers.

Moreover, as the body count mounts, McDonagh’s wonderful jaw-dropping script never fails to amaze: “If I'd grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me,” opines Ray, who hates the town. “But I didn't, so it doesn't.” And while Farrell gets the winning lines, Gleeson is allowed the wonderful nuance that only age and experience can allow, stunningly conveying the miserable emptiness of killing people for money. Few films, if any, have expressed the reality of this sordid profession. And as McDonagh ably illustrates, its not clever, really not nice and incredibly ugly. What isn’t ugly, though, is Bruges and the director takes full advantage of its handsome feudal architecture (as photographed by DP Eigil Bryld) that serves to flawlessly frame his untamed anecdote.

Few films, if any, have expressed the reality of the sordid profession of killing people for money

But, apart from the cinematography and the truly incredible script, the movie's main conquest is the casting. Gleeson is perfect as an obvious heavy who sees his days running out, his gallant tip of a face and ambling bulk of a bouncer expressing volumes, while Farrell's perky cultural insouciance and wounded confidence is like mustard on Gleason’s pork pie.

Ingeniously, McDonagh’s screenplay pulls all the disparate elements together like so many balls of different wool, creating a masterpiece peppered with great melancholy, poignancy, intemperance and a devastating wit drawn from the closest observation of his characters and their peccadilloes. A film that, Shakespearean in its achievements, I wish I had the privilege of seeing again for the first time.

In Bruges is available to stream on Netflix or to rent on Amazon.

Now read

Meet the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia

Best Netflix movies to help pass the time

A definitive Star Wars movies ranking, from best to worst