After a shooting in London goes hideously wrong, two hitmen, Ray and Ken, are sent to hide out in the strange, Gothic, medieval town of Bruges, Belgium, by their volatile and dangerous boss, Harry Waters.
While awaiting instructions from him as to what to do next, the pair attempt to deal both with their feelings over the botched killing and their differing attitudes towards this curious, otherworldly place they've been dumped in ('Bruges is a shithole.' 'Bruges is not a shithole'), until the call from Harry finally comes through, and all three men are enmeshed in a spiral of bloody violence that few will get out of alive.