# In Bruges | Ep. 33 - Part 1

An episode of [All The Right Movies](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1471502633), 22 Dec 2023, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO5715574883.mp3

It's a fairy-tale town, and two hitmen are stuck there hating every minute of it. Luke, Westy, and Matt begin the story of Martin McDonagh's pitch-black comedy of guilt and gunmen.In Part 1 we cover the film's opening, director Martin McDonagh, the cast, and the second act — including Colin Farrell's restless Ray, Brendan Gleeson's contemplative Ken, and a job gone horribly wrong hanging over both.There's a reckoning coming, and a man with very particular rules. Part 2 brings him: crew, finale, reception, legacy. Out now. Connect with ATRM: To join our fantastic community of film fans, support what we do, access our archive, listen to exclusive episodes, and a whole lot more, become an ATRM patron: Join the ATRM Community We're available on any podcast platform: Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify YouTube: Subscribe to our channelWe're across all major social channels too: Twitter: @ATRightMovies Instagram: @allthe_rightmovies Facebook: Join our movie group Bluesky: @alltherightmovies.com TikTok: @alltherightmovies Website: alltherightmovies.com

## Transcript

[0:04] All the movies. Well, the.
[0:08] Boy is suicidal, honey. He's a Walking Dead man.
[0:13] Keeps going on about hell and. When I found you yesterday, did
[0:16] I ask you, Ken, will you do me a favour and become race
[0:19] psychiatrist? Please, No.
[0:21] What I think I asked you was could you go blow his fucking
[0:24] head off for me? He's suicidal.
[0:27] I'm suicidal. You're suicidal.
[0:30] Everybody's fucking suicidal. We don't keep going on about it.
[0:34] Hitman Ray and Ken are ordered to hide out in Brugge after a
[0:37] job gone wrong in London. Ken is beguiled.
[0:39] Ray hates it, but the city brings with it the jewels
[0:42] reckoning as they face up to their misgivings and their
[0:45] lunatic boss Harry. In Bruges was the featured debut
[0:49] of celebrated playwright Martin McDonagh, who brought his
[0:51] inimitable dialogue and style to the big screen.
[0:54] He also brought together the acting talents of Colin Farrell
[0:56] and Brendan Gleeson. For the first time, the movie
[0:58] Going World rejoiced and critics swooned at this immediate modern
[1:02] cult classic. My name Is Luke and the two
[1:04] monkey hookers with me are Matt. And so my fucking kids, that's
[1:08] going overboard, mate. And Westy.
[1:10] What's a 50 year old lollipop man do?
[1:11] Known fucking karate? What is he, Chinese lollipop
[1:13] man? We're on a train out to Bruges.
[1:16] It's in Belgium. Do I have to?
[1:18] 'Cause you don't fucking have. To.
[1:37] Hello everyone. Merry Christmas and welcome to
[1:40] the final episode of 2023. From all the right movies.
[1:42] Yes, a fucking fairy tale of a podcast on classic and his films
[1:46] it is. We're ending the year in style
[1:48] with this show. Podcast First Christmas, later
[1:50] it's in Brugge. Nice.
[1:52] No dual carriageway though. No, it wasn't there when I was
[1:54] there. Yeah, well, it's about it,
[1:55] wasn't it? Yeah, bowling alley, though,
[1:57] yeah. Medieval ball and.
[2:01] A Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut.
[2:04] It was it. All right.
[2:04] Yeah. You know Pizza Hut?
[2:06] Pizza Hut. It was in England.
[2:07] That's globalization isn't. It OK.
[2:16] Before we start the sightseeing, it's time to take a look around
[2:19] the ATRM Museum known as Patriot.
[2:21] Yes, which is not a shithole. It isn't a shithole at all.
[2:25] Reserve judgment until you've seen the fucking thing, all
[2:27] right? This is going to be a long, long
[2:31] afternoon. I'm sure you've heard of us
[2:33] talking about Patreon before, so once more shouldn't be a
[2:36] problem. And if you're a new listener,
[2:38] you're in for a treat. Absolutely.
[2:39] Our biggest fans support us on Patreon, and as a reward for
[2:42] their efforts, they get access to our entire podcast archive.
[2:45] That's almost 70 episodes of our classic show, the one you're
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[2:57] those each month. Yes, yes you do.
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[3:01] about out and ask us questions, which we'll answer live on the
[3:04] show. So if you're looking for any
[3:05] last minute gift ideas for yourself or your loved ones,
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[3:21] extra. Special.
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[3:41] If you could help us out and support us we would really
[3:44] appreciate. Yes, we really would guys.
[3:46] Thank you. Thanks very much.
[3:47] Cheers. Back to In Bruges, then, chaps.
[3:50] I was going to say I should front this up by apologizing,
[3:53] but we've already sworn more than enough.
[3:57] But apologies in advance for any profanities, of which there will
[4:02] be a lot of return. Because of this.
[4:04] Any film with AC bomb in it will do it.
[4:06] Matt seems to take that as carte blanche.
[4:09] Take it as a challenge. Talk without his usual silver
[4:13] tongued grace. Just try not to say anything too
[4:18] loud or crass, man or. Try.
[4:20] So this is your choice. Why do you want to talk about
[4:22] Imbrugmat apart from the obvious nepotism?
[4:25] We'll get on to that. I'm honestly surprised it's
[4:29] taken us this long to get around to it.
[4:31] We always talk about it. We always quote it.
[4:34] We love McDonough and everyone in this, but genuinely for me,
[4:38] when this came out of the cinema I gave it the big swerve and
[4:41] that was, yeah, entirely because of the poster.
[4:43] I think the poster is terrible and it made it look like a bad
[4:48] guy. Richie knock off and see.
[4:50] We're interested in that type of thing.
[4:52] So is that. When Farrell's like holding the
[4:53] ice cream cone. Holding the ice cream and it's
[4:56] what's the tagline? Shoot First I see you later.
[4:58] Yeah, really enough crap. And I did see it because I think
[5:01] this must have been in like the dying days of when he could
[5:03] physically rent a film from a shop.
[5:05] I just thought I've heard some good things so I'll give it a
[5:07] go. And I got to the end and I
[5:09] genuinely wanted to watch it again right from the beginning,
[5:12] because it just went nowhere where I was expecting.
[5:15] And I remember to sit in there going.
[5:17] I think that was brilliant but I'm so surprised I can't quite
[5:20] get me head around it. You can't keep up with it the
[5:22] first time. You can't.
[5:23] But ever since then it's become a firm favorite.
[5:26] Long term listeners might remember couple years ago we did
[5:29] an alternative rank and Christmas films list.
[5:32] Don't give way if you haven't listened up, but this one was
[5:34] featured quite highly by all of us.
[5:36] So I'm really looking forward to talking about it in depth, and
[5:40] I'm really looking forward to seeing how many times Luke's got
[5:42] to break out the Bleep because yes, it's going to be a Sweary
[5:45] 1. Wow, Sorry.
[5:47] Sorry. Happy Christmas.
[5:49] May. Fucking Christmas.
[5:52] And we probably should explain for new listeners that nepotism
[5:55] comment Colin Farrell's your brother or something, Matt.
[5:58] Yeah, he's me brother. No, we are distant cousins,
[6:01] distantly related. Well, I'll say I said it before
[6:04] I say it again. Why isn't he here?
[6:06] I keep on sending him the Christmas card.
[6:08] He keeps on ignoring me. Have you got any contact with
[6:13] him at all? Just anything, Matt.
[6:18] No, because the kind of contact we had was dependent on my
[6:21] uncle, But he died a couple of years ago.
[6:23] Does he know who you are, man? Well, of course he does.
[6:27] Me. Who?
[6:27] Doesn't. Well, that's true enough.
[6:29] No, but seriously, does. He I wouldn't have thought.
[6:32] No, I absolutely wouldn't have thought so.
[6:34] He just doesn't like anymore. He just doesn't like me anymore.
[6:37] That's it. You like you like me yesterday?
[6:45] Fantastic. And Westie is in Bruce your
[6:48] thing. It's definitely my thing, and I
[6:51] agree with Matt, but I also kind of love that poster because it
[6:54] makes a lot of people who won't understand this film spend money
[6:57] and go and see it. Yeah, I want to see that guy
[7:01] Richie. Not often.
[7:01] They'll be so disappointed. I fucking love that secretly.
[7:04] Because it isn't that at all. No.
[7:06] It's very intelligent film, very theatrical film, very dialogue
[7:10] heavy, very good at addressing mental health without getting
[7:13] too bleak or too sad or too dark.
[7:16] It's very accessible, it's very watchable.
[7:18] One of me, very, very favorite films, and I remember this was
[7:21] the film that was saw before me, First child was born.
[7:24] It was like the last film that I saw, right?
[7:26] It's like. Like Momentous.
[7:28] Yeah, right. He will go, right.
[7:29] We'll go leave for the hospital and bruises on.
[7:30] And I was like kind of just finish this that day as well as
[7:40] I go watch it again. And I just remember I just have
[7:43] fond memories of it making us feel really safe and really
[7:46] comfortable and getting a lot of understanding from it.
[7:48] So it's one of the films that's always been there for me.
[7:50] I'll always introduce people to it.
[7:52] I'll always stand by it. And it has an incredible tone
[7:55] and an incredible comedy element to it.
[7:57] A great, great first double act from Gleason and Farrell and an
[8:00] amazing turn from Fine. So yeah, I'm looking forward to
[8:02] driving into this one. Yeah, very much.
[8:04] I think we're all the same. All of those things that you
[8:06] said, to be honest, fellas, you can get the comedy, tragedy and
[8:09] great performances from the first watch of In Bruges, I
[8:12] think. But I think repeat viewings are
[8:14] essential to really get to the bottom of Mcdonough's work here.
[8:17] Yeah, in a style that we've now become accustomed to,
[8:20] considering his filmography as well.
[8:23] It's a wonderful film. Obviously.
[8:24] You've got the Swans and the bridge, isn't that?
[8:27] All the old buildings that. All the old buildings in that,
[8:32] but it's got really nuanced performances, huge, huge, huge
[8:36] depth from Colin Farrell that we probably hadn't seen beforehand.
[8:39] No. And good busting humor.
[8:41] Probably one of the funniest films of the 21st century for
[8:43] me. It's up there.
[8:45] Definitely easy. It's so funny.
[8:47] Tim Bruges was written and directed by Martin McDonagh and
[8:50] produced by Graham Broadbent and Peter Chernin for Focus
[8:52] Features. Shot on location in Bruges and
[8:55] released on the 8th of February 2008, it stars Colin Farrell and
[8:59] Brendan Gleeson as mismatched hitman Ryan Ken Clemens, bossy
[9:03] stars as Chloe and Rear finds as the deranged criminal kingpin
[9:07] Harry Waters. Yep.
[9:10] We're delving deep into the alcoves of Imbruges, and we're
[9:12] starting with Ray and Ken arriving by train.
[9:35] A Moody opening to the film highlights Bruges architecture,
[9:38] and Ray's voiceover half confirms the motivation for our
[9:41] two leads to be in this picturesque part of the world.
[9:44] Matt is Bruges a shithole? Depends if your kind of fucking
[9:47] thing. I know, doesn't it?
[9:50] I love the opening door because it's even better if you don't
[9:53] know where this film is going because it's full of intrigue.
[9:55] You know who has this guy killed and why does it mean that he's
[9:58] being sent to Bruges of all places?
[10:00] Why there? And the fact that Ray doesn't
[10:03] know where Bruges is tells you a lot about him straight away.
[10:05] But also when he says that straight in with a great joke.
[10:08] It's in Belgium. Yeah, just really funny, really
[10:11] funny, deadpan. In this opening.
[10:13] It has all this melancholic music.
[10:15] It has the carvings on the buildings.
[10:17] That's all that, you know, the docky, the delcoves.
[10:19] So it's all quite threatening. And then when you see Ray and
[10:22] Kent for the first time, it's handheld.
[10:24] It all feels and looks very bleak.
[10:26] And this was the first clue for me that, oh, this isn't going to
[10:29] be what I thought it was. And Ray really surprises you in
[10:32] that opening sequence because he looks so sulky and he's
[10:35] extremely unimpressed that he has to share a room with Ken
[10:38] because it's Christmas so it's fully booked.
[10:39] So you think this guy is going to be a complete pain in the
[10:43] arse, just cause some trouble and complaining, you know when
[10:45] he's going for two weeks and fucking Rouge room like this
[10:48] with you? No way with.
[10:50] You. So yeah, you think he's this
[10:53] guy, but then when Ken alludes to him, well, you're the reason
[10:55] why we're here. He's straightened our bathroom
[10:57] and you can see practically sort of sobbing right away.
[11:00] So something has happened, something bad, something we are
[11:03] not Privy to. It's just a really extremely
[11:06] intriguing opening and a kind of wrong foot to you right from the
[11:08] start. I love Ken's little look towards
[11:11] rear when they're on the way to the hotel.
[11:13] He's so happy with himself when he sees the canal and he kind of
[11:16] nods and winks it's rear like told you.
[11:19] It's fantastic, isn't? It yeah, isn't it?
[11:22] It's like 9 Shit. It's the first line of dialogue
[11:26] in this film. Like when I killed him, I went
[11:29] to Burger King and washed remnants off my hands through
[11:31] the gun in the Times. It's like, who did you kill?
[11:33] Where is this going? And you kind of missed a.
[11:35] Lot of intrigue. Yeah, yeah.
[11:36] I'm going to go for the bit when it's just Ken wanted to just see
[11:39] more of the place, wanting to go in the tower.
[11:42] He's just so happy, isn't he? He's just such a lovable.
[11:44] The best. Time.
[11:45] The best hit man I've seen on film.
[11:47] Just the most lovable guy and it's when he's counting them
[11:50] coins out and he's just 4490 and he's and he's 5 year old and
[11:56] he's 5. This guy's a fucking Dick.
[11:58] But I see this and I've said this ever since.
[12:01] If I encounter anybody in Rihanna, know it's hard work
[12:03] working in retail. I'm not taking that away from
[12:05] you. I've done it.
[12:05] And I know it's hard work. Yeah, but turn around and going
[12:08] happy and your work is one of my favorite things to say to anyone
[12:12] who's having a bad time. But this guy responds in the
[12:15] most obnoxious way, Very happy. He obviously loves that job.
[12:19] This is just great foreshadowing, which I'll get
[12:20] into later on with the coins and they're not getting accepted,
[12:23] but obviously, but no way. That's great.
[12:24] And that's what's a wonderful thing in the mirror image.
[12:26] But another great thing that you don't really, really pick up on
[12:29] is when he gets to that tower and he looks down at the view
[12:31] and he sees Gray walking around and he points the finger at me
[12:34] if he's going to shoot him, which kind of foreshadows
[12:36] everything else. This film has a lot of it, asks
[12:39] a lot of questions, but gives a lot of answers.
[12:41] But you've really got to look for them because they're all so
[12:44] subtle and so nuanced. A lot of them are visual.
[12:46] It's just genius writing. Absolute genius.
[12:49] It's incredible stuff. I love the moment outside of
[12:51] that tower. Firstly, just before Ken goes up
[12:54] there. Ray doesn't want to go up.
[12:55] Yes, he was raised in Dublin. He loves Dublin.
[12:58] If he was raised on a farm and some other things, Rouge might
[13:01] impress him. But he didn't, So it doesn't.
[13:03] Diplomatic. I like that.
[13:04] Very well done. That line, although hilarious,
[13:08] it just outlines these characters.
[13:10] Just small mindedness and stubbornness.
[13:12] He'd rather sit on a bench by himself in the freezing cold
[13:16] than go up the tower with Ken, and that's more mindedness.
[13:19] Feeds right into the interaction he has with the American family.
[13:22] It's a thread in the film. It links the Canadians at the
[13:24] restaurant. And Jimmy, he doesn't just hate
[13:26] Bruges, he hits anywhere that isn't Dublin.
[13:29] He hits anything that he doesn't know about it.
[13:33] And there are two hilarious moments here, Of course, utterly
[13:36] offensive when he calls them a bunch of fucking elephants.
[13:39] I mean outrageous. It's just from nowhere.
[13:43] It's so small minded to any stereotype as well and you
[13:46] should hear these people. Yeah, but there's something very
[13:49] Monty Python, or even Benny Hill of him being chased around by
[13:52] the big. Isn't it?
[13:55] Yeah, yeah. It's a total slapstick moment.
[13:57] You know, you're just the rudest man.
[14:01] Yeah, well, when Ken comes back down and he's harangued by that
[14:05] woman, he asks Rhea what happens and he gives him this like
[14:07] innocent little shrug of the shoulders.
[14:09] Yeah, I don't agree at that. Yeah.
[14:11] Americans, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, Americans.
[14:12] Isn't it? But Ken knows he's been up to no
[14:15] good. Yeah.
[14:15] Yeah. So a hilarious opening to the
[14:18] film. We don't quite know the source
[14:19] of Rhea's pain, but we can certainly feel.
[14:22] It absolutely. Yes, definitely.
[14:27] Back to the hotel. Ray and Ken are settled for a
[14:29] quiet night in, awaiting a phone call.
[14:31] But Ray has other ideas. And this moment when they're in
[14:34] the room, Ray is looking out the window, and it's the most
[14:38] beautiful view you've ever seen in your life.
[14:40] He's got a window seat. He could stay there all night,
[14:44] but he's bored out of his brain and he manages to wrangle Ken
[14:49] out. And he does it because he spots
[14:50] a kind of a small weakness in Ken's defences.
[14:53] First, he says, let's go out. Ken's eyes widen.
[14:56] Go out where? To the pub?
[14:57] No, but because of this flicker of encouragement was there.
[15:01] Rear changes his approach. He takes his time about it as
[15:04] well, and you can see the cogs going as he's assessing his
[15:06] delivery and suggests going out to see all the old buildings and
[15:09] that. Yeah, great.
[15:11] Lovely. Like seeing that side of Real?
[15:12] Yeah, yeah. He's not completely stupid, but
[15:16] presumably he wants to go at the pub and get drunk all the time
[15:19] in the film to numb the guilt of that he's carrying around his
[15:22] neck. Yeah, yeah.
[15:23] So, although hilarious, all of it is tinged with this sadness.
[15:26] Yeah, but his reaction when Ken says yes.
[15:28] Yes, come on. All the old buildings and shit.
[15:36] I really love about this section of the film is when they're
[15:38] actually out and about and Ray gets so excited and the film on
[15:42] something, the film images and it's like, yeah, it's so funny,
[15:46] but at the same time quite offensive, very offensive, at
[15:49] the same time quite surreal. And far all you can tell is just
[15:53] it's got this kind of innocence, it's an ignorance, it's a real
[15:57] innocence. And when he goes up to Chloe,
[15:58] that's my favorite bit of anything, trying to talk to
[16:01] somebody or trying to chat somebody up.
[16:03] And I'm like if that's all you have to do, I might give this a
[16:05] bash at some point because I've always.
[16:07] Just talked about Time Ban, yeah.
[16:09] Midgets. A lot of midgets kill
[16:11] themselves. A disproportionate emotionate.
[16:13] Amount actually. But they are disproportionate,
[16:15] it's kind of all it's really got 2.
[16:18] Examples disproportionate. And he only knows the name of
[16:21] one of them, the R2D fella. No, he's still.
[16:24] He's still still he just he's on the set.
[16:29] He's got in there somehow you can tell he's obviously got the
[16:31] way of just moving around so he's broken through securities
[16:34] on there and fills our coffee. I'll be like hello just like
[16:38] spilling it around and and she turns in and and has this
[16:42] incredible dials like a pastiche of don't look now and you're
[16:45] like wow, OK, right. I understand that.
[16:46] Yeah. And he hasn't got a fucking clue
[16:48] what you're talking about. Fucking.
[16:51] He's not seen it, does he? And it's really, really good and
[16:53] really funny, as I'll tell you what I do tomorrow with dinner.
[16:55] And she loves that because you can just see through this guy
[16:58] and just see how innocent he is, not how ignorant he is.
[17:00] And I think it's a really lovely moment from Farrell and it's so
[17:03] brave for him to play this role at this point in his career when
[17:06] he's really trying to prove something.
[17:07] I mean, this is after like Minority Report, right?
[17:09] And everything's kind of gone a little bit downhill for him and
[17:12] he needs to get he's just being himself.
[17:13] He's like, look, this is what I'm like.
[17:15] And he shows that innocence and he shows that like it's got a
[17:17] real integrity to the role. And this is what shows it for
[17:19] makes it's just so nuanced. But it's so cool when she throws
[17:22] that card and he. Says it.
[17:24] Nice move. Yeah.
[17:25] It's really, really good. She's cool as ice pops in this
[17:28] film as well and he just picks up like so fucking cool.
[17:31] And I'm like yeah, that is pretty cool.
[17:33] I would be terrified to ring that number if she did that to
[17:35] me. I'd be like that's it done.
[17:37] That's all I can do. Just give us a number.
[17:39] I'm just going to tell everyone about that moment.
[17:41] I'll never ring and because I'm going to fuck this up.
[17:43] I think it's a great character reveal of getting to know more
[17:47] of Ryan realizing that he isn't this big shot.
[17:50] He isn't clever. He's just innocent and.
[17:52] Ignorant. Yeah.
[17:53] Very innocent. Not very chair like.
[17:54] Yeah. Very much so.
[17:55] Very, very much so. Yeah, and that's Clemens Palsy
[17:58] playing Chloe in the scene. And she said reading the script
[18:00] was like infant Martin's universe with things you've
[18:03] never heard or seen. And I just wanted to be a tiny
[18:05] part of it. I thought I want to say those
[18:08] lines. Yeah.
[18:09] And she is wonderful. And she's got a classically kind
[18:12] of European quality tour, yeah. So I'm going to follow this up
[18:16] with Ken obviously going back to the hotel by himself, because
[18:19] Ray's out. Jason.
[18:21] Chloe. And there's that lovely bit of
[18:23] comedy when Marie, who's the the one of the hotel now.
[18:27] Mr. Blakely. Yes No.
[18:29] Mr. Cranham, no. Yes, Mr. Blakely.
[18:31] Yes, Yes. Doesn't know who he is, doesn't
[18:33] know who he's pretending to be here, so farcical, doing a
[18:36] terrible job of keeping a low profile.
[18:39] And then of course, it's the message that he's got from
[18:41] Harry, who is absolutely curious, and it's one of the
[18:44] best bits of swearing you'll ever hear.
[18:47] I'm only going to say the last bit, but you better fucking be
[18:49] in tomorrow night when I fucking call again.
[18:51] I'll be fucking hell to pay. I'm fucking telling you, Harry.
[18:53] Harry. Harry, this thing is like, once
[18:59] you've seen this film and you meet Harry.
[19:01] Like, now whenever I watched, I'll just get this image in my
[19:03] head of the scene of Marie having to take down this
[19:06] message, this torrent of profanity.
[19:08] Yeah, OK. Yes, right.
[19:11] And actually writing it out, Like, not, not certainly writing
[19:15] it down, but her handwriting is so beautiful next to that type
[19:18] note. Yeah, usually it's just so good.
[19:20] You can see her, her personality and her character.
[19:22] She's such a caring person. It's so well done.
[19:25] Well, it's great. Isn't that underneath what she's
[19:27] written there? I'm not the receptionist
[19:29] actually won the hotel with my husband, I think just tells you
[19:31] so much about her. She's not intimidated by anyone.
[19:33] So that's right. This is who I am.
[19:36] It's brilliant. And there's something else in
[19:37] Reston, hey, which it's such a small detail, but I don't think
[19:40] McDonough is the kind, right, who lets anything in this film.
[19:43] So I'm really thinking it too. Oh, absolutely.
[19:44] And. It's the fact he sent Ken and
[19:46] Rea all the way to Bruce to wait for him to contact them, but he
[19:50] hasn't given them a mobile phone.
[19:51] And I think there's two ways of looking at this.
[19:53] I think one, it's his way of controlling them because if they
[19:56] have a mobile, they can go anywhere because they don't have
[19:59] to stay in the hotel. And that's him just exercising a
[20:01] bit of control. But for me, the second bit, it
[20:05] just fits into this whole setting of Bruges where I think
[20:07] throughout the film that has this slight sense of being
[20:09] disconnected from the rest of the world.
[20:11] Like I think it's very deliberate that it gets called a
[20:14] fairy tale place because. The fact they don't have mobile
[20:17] phones, it's almost like they've gone back in time to some kind
[20:21] of old fairy tale. It's all the whole film for me
[20:24] is just ever so slightly like to touch from reality.
[20:26] You know the film that Jimmy is making, it's full of these weird
[20:29] surreal dream sequences and so this thing of like they don't
[20:33] even have a mobile phone and the avenue is like old dial ups and
[20:37] rotaries. That's just another one of those
[20:39] little touches that take the film away from normality.
[20:41] Bit really like that. Yeah.
[20:42] It's a great point. Yeah.
[20:43] Yeah. But then I just love that lovely
[20:45] scene of Ray coming back who's so happy with himself because
[20:48] he's meant Chloe and he's not even pissed because.
[20:51] Yeah. We've all been there.
[20:52] We've all had the night where we'll get back in like I've
[20:55] drunk a lot. I'm not even pissed.
[20:57] And I'm. 6 pints of even 7 bottles.
[20:59] Yeah, And the next one, you wake up, you go.
[21:01] Actually, yeah, definitely was. I was just in the zone.
[21:03] He's just in the zone, isn't he? Yeah.
[21:07] So Reyes found a distraction from his misery in Chloe.
[21:10] But there's going to be hell to be when Harry gets on.
[21:13] Oh yeah. The director.
[21:20] The man at the helm is first time director Martin McDonagh, a
[21:24] celebrated playwright since the mid 90s, but it was always his
[21:27] goal to get into features. A first time appearance from
[21:29] McDonough on the show. It'll likely not be his last.
[21:32] I thought so. Westie, What do you think of his
[21:34] work on in Bruges? I think his work on In Bruges is
[21:36] impeccably well done. I think it shows such a
[21:39] confidence. You can tell the way he blocks
[21:40] here, the way he moves the camera reminds me a lot of Sam
[21:43] Mendes who came from the same background.
[21:46] Yeah, he's got very Sam Mendes kind of vibe to it, where you
[21:49] can see this, this space where the know where people are going
[21:52] to move in the frame. And I think them two directors
[21:55] especially show that really well.
[21:56] But I love how much control he's got in that space.
[21:59] He knows exactly what he wants you to look at.
[22:01] But what he does from the theater background is gives
[22:03] space to the actors to move in, gives them room to perform and
[22:08] he likes, he loves the performance.
[22:09] For me, he's very much an actor as director.
[22:11] Any actor wants to work with them.
[22:13] I can't see cinematographers lining up to do the next
[22:16] McDonough film like they would want to do the next Nolan film.
[22:19] But I see actors lining around the block going, I'll do
[22:21] anything, he writes down I. Want to see those lines?
[22:24] Exactly I want I want. To just like Clemens Posey.
[22:26] Exactly. I want to embody that character
[22:29] that he's envisioned for anyone to turn around and go.
[22:32] This is a debut film. It's up there with Boogie
[22:34] Nights. For me, it's like a debut.
[22:35] It's up there with Reservoir Dogs.
[22:37] It's one of the best debut films that I can confidently watch.
[22:40] I can't find anything wrong with it.
[22:42] It's exactly what he wants to see.
[22:43] And that's what I love about a filmmaker and really, really
[22:47] stands up. It's fantastic stuff.
[22:49] Yeah, I mean, I want to pick up on what Wesley's saying about
[22:51] him being a debut filmmaker, but because straight away, you know
[22:55] what kind of a filmmaker he is, he's already got a very distinct
[22:59] vision and personality. The knee was comparison I could
[23:01] make. Wesley's went with Mendes out
[23:03] here, the Coen brothers for me, because it's that broad humor
[23:06] with uneasy laughs and dark humor and bloody violence all
[23:10] written at the same time. And the same composer.
[23:12] Obviously that helps. Same composer.
[23:14] Same composer, yeah, Massive. But the way he twists the pot
[23:17] and the characters is very Corn Esque.
[23:19] But at the same time, I think he makes his characters slightly
[23:21] more relatable. He gives them slightly bigger
[23:24] emotional arcs, which is easy to buy into.
[23:27] And that's very McDonagh. He does that in three
[23:29] billboards. It's what he doesn't fancies him
[23:30] in a show and he takes characters where you go.
[23:33] I'm not sure if I like them or I'm not sure how much I like
[23:35] them, but I'm really interested in where they're going in this
[23:38] film and where this journey is going to take me.
[23:41] Because one thing about McDonough is he never takes you
[23:43] anywhere predictable. Like you can't guess in the open
[23:46] in 15 minutes what's going to happen to Ray and Ken when Harry
[23:49] turns up. There's no way you'd guess what
[23:50] he's going to end up doing at the end of the film.
[23:53] And I think I mentioned this when we did our YouTube analysis
[23:57] on Banshees, but it's really notable to me that out of three
[24:00] was 4 films, he's got the location in the title.
[24:03] It's something that's clearly very important to him in a
[24:05] Sharon that's a character in its own right every in Missouri.
[24:09] It's that kind of small town forgotten place in America where
[24:12] those kind of events could happen and bruises and just
[24:15] picked at random. Because it does have that
[24:17] beauty. It does have that fairy tale
[24:19] aspect which really appeals to Ken and Harry, which bores the
[24:22] arse off rape. But the beauty of that place
[24:24] contrast to the violence that unfolds within it in the
[24:27] darkness of this story. And again, that's just pure
[24:30] McDonough you get at the end of the film, you go.
[24:32] Somehow he's told me exactly who he is as a filmmaker, and I
[24:35] think that's pretty remarkable for a pretty small.
[24:37] Scale debut McDonough Like the Setna Bruges, he paints this
[24:42] rich tapestry of the absurd, the vile, the hilarious, the
[24:46] beautiful that's all in there. There's more on PC comedy in
[24:50] here than in any film I can think of reading.
[24:52] Some great sight gags, some very funny word player, but he sits
[24:56] that right next to melodrama and despair and the arts.
[25:01] It's so lit and the most striking thing for me is the
[25:04] juxtaposition of of comedy and tragedy. 2 classic themes, Ones
[25:08] that I'm sure from his time in the theatre he's very, very
[25:11] aware of, very fond of who knows how to play them against each
[25:14] other. But I never experienced such
[25:17] laugh out loud moments right next to the crushing pain that
[25:20] rain is going through. And I can really feel that in
[25:22] the film. And it's not something that's
[25:25] just one scene is pain and the next scene is humor.
[25:28] It's all contained within one scene at a time.
[25:30] Yeah, like when Ken's talking about killing people leading to
[25:34] Rear talking about killing the little boy.
[25:36] I mean, the worst of the worst kind of guilt to reckon with.
[25:39] Yeah, but then sandwich routine that is really losing the shit
[25:43] about lollipop men on karate. Your quote at the start.
[25:46] What was he your Chinese? But then you think this is
[25:52] throwaway dialogue. Then later on someone comes up
[25:54] with a bottle and he goes a bottle, a bottle, and then you
[25:56] piss yourself. You're like, oh, that's why that
[25:58] was there. It's such a setup.
[25:59] And pay off the whole thing. It's.
[26:00] Great. And that's just one example.
[26:02] The film stuffed full of them, which we'll get to as we
[26:05] progress through the film. Yeah, I just can't speak highly
[26:07] enough of Mcdonough's work here. Like Bruges, it constantly
[26:11] reveals newer, darker things with eatery.
[26:14] Watch. It's incredible.
[26:15] Yeah, it's fantastic stuff. I mean, the way that you shoot
[26:17] to the town as well is very claustrophobic.
[26:19] It's all very much close-ups. There's no drone shots going
[26:22] over the top sweeping landscapes.
[26:24] It's just there's a close up on that.
[26:26] There's a close up on that, yeah.
[26:27] It's the biggest one's. The one from the top of the
[26:28] tower at the beginning isn't. It, yeah, that's it.
[26:30] That's it. That's it.
[26:31] But. It zooms in.
[26:32] Yeah. And that's for a reason.
[26:33] That's for Ken to do the. The point and shooting thing,
[26:36] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just then.
[26:38] Then that plays off later on. So everything's got a reason.
[26:41] You've seen it for a reason. It's brilliant, mind.
[26:43] Blown. McDonough did draw inspiration
[26:46] from 2 Nicholas Rogue films, So the crime elements he took from
[26:49] performance, which is the Mick Jagger film and obviously, I
[26:52] mean it's mentioned within the film, but don't look now,
[26:54] obviously, yeah, because that one Venice is a character in
[26:58] that film and plays an important part in the narrative like Bruce
[27:00] does he. Yeah, Chloe references don't
[27:02] look now. And she says yeah, she's the
[27:04] film. She's super, is a tip of the hat
[27:05] to it, not an homage. She's too strong.
[27:08] She's too strong, so you're in this great, McDonough said.
[27:13] From the moment I saw the town, I thought this place is just so
[27:16] cinematic. As the film progresses, Bruges
[27:18] becomes darker and it's gothic qualities come to the fore,
[27:21] which definitely does. The film does get darker, but
[27:24] the thing that strikes me is like, you know when Ken's
[27:25] walking over the bridge to get the gun, it's just a close up of
[27:29] the you don't see anything else. It's just a bridge in focus and
[27:31] Ken walking over it. That could be in a beautiful
[27:34] wide shot and show all the Rouge.
[27:35] It's not about that. It's about him and his journey.
[27:37] The film set obviously during Christmas, but was shot in
[27:40] February. March officials from Bruges gave
[27:42] McDonough a license to hang Christmas decorations all over
[27:44] the city and an official communication was sent out to
[27:47] locals explaining the health of season merriment.
[27:50] In 2012, the Mayor of Bruges put a stop to film in the city after
[27:54] being flooded with requests from movie productions.
[27:56] This and he was quite unhappy with how Bruges is portrayed in
[27:59] the film, which I need to get a guest post look at the big.
[28:02] Understandable, because real all races is how much of a shit all
[28:06] you. Still want to go?
[28:07] Like, I still want to go. Of course you do.
[28:08] I think it's improved tourism like everyone else.
[28:13] I didn't even know it existed before this film, and that's why
[28:17] it's such a wonderful thing. It's in Belgium, all right.
[28:18] It's in Belgium. But before they got burnt, the
[28:20] city of Bruges gave McDonough the keys to the city, and there
[28:24] were only been a few films set in Bruges beforehand.
[28:26] As Chloe points out, there's never been a classic film set in
[28:29] Bruges, Yeah. So apparently they got the all
[28:31] clear to film in just about every stunning location that
[28:34] McDonough wanted aside from one church.
[28:37] And that says a lot about how helpful the people were from
[28:39] which I think is great. You can tell as well, kind of
[28:41] the run of the. Place Don't usually get carte
[28:43] blanche to shoot anywhere you want in a city.
[28:46] No, not at all. Well, the producer, Graham
[28:48] Broadband, He said it's almost unheard of for a movie shoot to
[28:51] be able to film in real galleries with so many valuable
[28:54] pictures. We had to take out hundreds of
[28:56] millions of dollars worth of insurance policies to the
[28:59] possibility of any damage. Yeah, it's unreal.
[29:02] And massive close-ups are then massive close.
[29:04] Ups as well, like, yeah. At the time of release,
[29:06] McDonough said. I actually can't wait to go back
[29:08] to Bruges, but I think I'd better go back before the film
[29:11] comes out there because they're probably going to kill me.
[29:13] Get the keys back. And we're going to end on
[29:17] McDonough with a question from one of our Patreon supporters.
[29:20] I mentioned at the start that you can submit your questions
[29:22] for the show if you're a patron. The first one comes from Jacob
[29:26] Perry. Hello, Jacob.
[29:27] Hello, Jacob. Hello, Jacob.
[29:29] Jacob says plot location seems to play a very important part in
[29:32] Mcdonough's films considering the quarantino style film making
[29:36] McDonough brings to the table. Not taking anything away from
[29:40] McDonough as his style is uniquely his own.
[29:43] What unique locations would the ATRM crew like to see McDonough
[29:46] next film take place? In that's interesting question
[29:49] it. Is yes, yes.
[29:51] Matt, do you want to take that I?
[29:53] Mean, I would trust McDonough to pick anywhere and make it
[29:55] interesting, quite honestly. But I think it's films, the kind
[29:59] of commonality is all the places tend to be very remote and I
[30:02] think he just gets the idea of how you put character somewhere
[30:05] remote. It's going to be more dramatic
[30:06] because they can't escape. There's no easy route.
[30:08] So I would say like anywhere, just really extreme.
[30:11] Like Antarctica put foul and Gleason on the top of Everest
[30:14] together 90 minutes McDonough filming that, That would be
[30:17] amazing. Constantly just coming back to
[30:19] the thing you like with fucking everything I know.
[30:24] I know I would love McDonough to do the thing.
[30:26] It'd be incredible. Put them in like the Mariana
[30:29] Trench. You could set it in a submarine
[30:31] at the bottom of the ocean, and I think McDonough would find
[30:33] something interesting about that.
[30:35] Yeah, Yeah. So somewhere like that.
[30:38] Yeah, I had exactly the same thing.
[30:40] I had Antarctica with the thing in mind.
[30:43] Because we've been on home. Yeah.
[30:44] Yeah, it did. Yeah, because we've been on home
[30:46] soil with Banshees. Well, using artistic license in
[30:49] home soil, but you know what I mean?
[30:50] Yeah, yeah, Europe for in Bruges, American for three
[30:52] billboards. So yeah, Antarctica or or that
[30:55] on Newcastle, one of the two. When was the last time you saw
[30:59] our hometown on the big screen? Well, that's funny.
[31:02] You should say for my answer to it, it needs to be a place that
[31:06] has isn't actually a character. The more of a character the
[31:08] place is, I think the more it suffers. 7 psychopaths being
[31:11] based in LA really makes that suffer because you expect
[31:14] something from the place and they start to invent places.
[31:17] Now, like initially invented. Yeah, yeah, to make it a
[31:20] character in itself. So really you need you need a
[31:22] place that's quite a dull character that has a lot of
[31:25] tradition and it has a lot of quirks, and I would say that
[31:27] would be socials for him. We do a film in South Shields
[31:32] just to pull all of the quirks out of it and the tradition out
[31:34] of it. It's a fucking shit hole.
[31:36] And I can see that because I'm from there, right?
[31:38] So if you're from Shields, I'm really sorry, but N Shields,
[31:40] South Shields, Time out, Newcastle, whatever.
[31:42] But I've known anything since. Get Carter, so get McDonough in
[31:45] here. Either that or the moon.
[31:49] Brilliant. So there's a thread going
[31:51] between all of our answers. Yeah.
[31:53] Thank you very much for your question, Jake.
[31:55] Yeah, thanks. Jake answers it.
[31:56] Yeah, satisfactorily. A blinder of A directorial debut
[32:01] from McDonagh. One of the best in recent
[32:03] memory? Definitely.
[32:04] Absolutely the cast. We're talking about the two
[32:12] leads in this section, starting with your boy, Matt.
[32:15] Colin Farrell, Yes, take her away.
[32:16] Yes indeed, Cousin Colin. CC The thing with Foul in this
[32:20] film, I feel this is where he's announced himself properly as an
[32:23] actor. Because I think before this, I
[32:25] don't think Hollywood knew what to do with him.
[32:26] He had this reputation, He was a hellraiser, he was a womanizer
[32:30] and I think Hollywood tried to pigeonhole him and put him in
[32:33] like rubbish action films of the thought maybe he's going to be
[32:36] the next Russell Cross, we'll put him in Alexander.
[32:38] But that was an awful film and none of it really worked until
[32:41] you get this and you realize, no, he's what he is.
[32:44] He's a great actor and he's great at portraying complexity
[32:47] and ambiguity because as a character, Ray is an absolute
[32:51] mass of contradictions. Like when you first made him,
[32:55] he's sulky, He's sullen, like kicking the chair around in that
[32:58] church because he's so. Bored, shuffling across the
[33:02] floor. Amazing.
[33:03] Five year old has lost his sweets.
[33:05] Oh my God, he's an absolute nightmare.
[33:08] But it's like what you used to be insane.
[33:09] Also, he's just a big kid. Like he's so excited to see
[33:12] Jimmy on the film, set the film and midgets, and he's straight
[33:16] over there. Literally runs to it.
[33:18] So he's this like big ball of chaotic energy, like in barely
[33:21] controlled. But then you dig a little deeper
[33:23] and you see what's really going on underneath the surface and
[33:26] you get those moments where you see the truth of the character
[33:29] and what he's going through. Like there's like great moan
[33:31] ways on the date with Chloe and it's foul on like full beam
[33:34] charisma. He's got the jokes, he's got the
[33:36] charm. Makes a joke of his issues by
[33:38] saying he only kills priests and kids and then Chloe jokes back.
[33:41] Yeah, you look like you kill kids and he just makes that
[33:44] noise. Like like trying to laugh it
[33:47] off. But you can.
[33:48] See. He has to be a contradiction for
[33:50] this film to work because he says unforgivable things and he
[33:54] did kill the kids, so you should hate them.
[33:56] But if I was so good at portraying that genuine anguish,
[33:59] like you're caught between hitting them and wanting to
[34:01] forgive him and more importantly, wanting him to
[34:04] forgive himself, Like, yeah, absolutely.
[34:06] The bit where Ken stops from killing himself in the park and
[34:09] he just breaks down on those sobs.
[34:10] Yeah, heartbreak and stuff it is.
[34:13] And I love that touch where in a suicide note, he says I've gone
[34:16] to the park because I didn't want her to see the mess,
[34:18] meaning Marie because obviously she's heavily pregnant.
[34:21] So there's that thing of because he's killed a little boy, he's
[34:25] doing everything he can for Marie and that unborn child as
[34:27] penance. So I think if this had been
[34:29] anybody else, I honestly don't know if they could have made all
[34:31] those contradictory elements make sense.
[34:34] It's like one whole character, but foul does, you know.
[34:36] So yeah, he's excellent. Great actor, great performance.
[34:40] Family. I do think though one of our I
[34:44] do think that this is more of a comment from Farrell about his
[34:46] career than it is about who he is like playing this role.
[34:50] I think it's very personal thing for him.
[34:52] A lot of it's around drinking and drugs.
[34:54] And he acts it perfectly as if it's kind of just getting
[34:57] through the demons that he used to be and going from like, Phone
[35:01] Booth. Tigerland.
[35:02] Yeah, Minority Report Alexander, It's like you almost turns up
[35:05] the chemicals. You know, I've done 6, No, 7
[35:08] films, and I wasn't even pissed, but you was, you know, you tell
[35:11] you wasn't having a good time through all that.
[35:13] And you get that from the character.
[35:14] There's this real sense that he's Lee, Let's go of a lot of
[35:18] the weight that was on his shoulders.
[35:19] Anything could just be himself and he can act like he wants to
[35:22] act. And that's why I love this
[35:24] performance. It's really genuine.
[35:25] It is. Yeah, when we truly get to the
[35:28] source of raised pain, it's almost unbearable.
[35:30] And I think the worst of it is that note that the little boys
[35:33] holding the timely shot? Devastating.
[35:36] Presumably he's repenting his sins, which are being Moody,
[35:40] being bad at maths and being sad.
[35:42] That's so deeply affecting on a level I just can't quite
[35:46] explain. That would be my note.
[35:47] I write that every day. Good.
[35:53] The tension there was wonderful. That's my that's my three things
[35:57] I regret. But yeah, I mean Farrell.
[35:58] A revelation is rare considering what he's done in his career
[36:01] beforehand. This was never even hinted at,
[36:03] no. So, Farrell said, pound for
[36:05] pound, it was the best, best thing I've ever read.
[36:07] Martin's got some brain on him. It's just brilliant.
[36:10] The characters and the situations are unique and with
[36:13] amazing dialogue. Yeah, yeah.
[36:16] Before they started rolling the cameras, McDonagh, Gleeson and
[36:18] Farrell spent three weeks in a Bruges hotel room together,
[36:21] going through the script with a fine tooth comb.
[36:23] Yeah, because McDonagh said. We analyse the script, talking
[36:27] and reading it through and after now little scenes talking about
[36:29] the histories of the characters, so how they met, where they're
[36:32] related. And it was a pretty intense
[36:34] amount of work, which meant by the first day of shooting, there
[36:37] weren't any questions we needed to ask of each other.
[36:39] We just went and filmed everything we'd learned.
[36:41] Yeah, there's such a you can tell there's such a trust
[36:43] between everybody, totally, Gleason said.
[36:45] That time was a great gift. At times it felt I should have
[36:48] bought a ticket at the door, given the quality of Colin's
[36:51] work. They've got such an appreciation
[36:53] for each other, the. Relation for each other.
[36:55] There's such a love there. It is quite deeper in seeing.
[36:57] Yeah, it's amazing. Farrell was initially unsure
[37:00] about being cast as rare because the script, he said, was too
[37:02] good for him and that audiences would expect something different
[37:05] from a Colin Farrell film. Yeah.
[37:07] He's reinvented it. That's what he did.
[37:08] So a true career define and role for Colin Farrell, giving him
[37:12] the praise he very much deserved?
[37:14] Absolutely, yeah. Ed Westie, it's over to you to
[37:18] talk about a man very much treasured by us at all the right
[37:22] movies. Yes, I'm going to go for Brendan
[37:24] Gleeson, who for me is always. Great.
[37:26] Yes, and whatever reason. So strong as a character actor,
[37:32] he's got so much range and so much depth that you never, ever
[37:36] doubt the performance. He makes Troy watchable here.
[37:39] That's how good he is. He's just one of them actors
[37:41] where he just ignores and he wants to understand everyone
[37:44] that he's working with and he wants to give them everything
[37:48] that can do. I have not got anything but
[37:50] absolute praise for Brendan Gleeson because everything I've
[37:52] seen him in, I just think he's wonderful.
[37:55] Yeah, like Banshees. Gleeson I think is overshadowed
[37:58] by Farrell on the surface of it. Yeah, Farrell's got the funniest
[38:02] lines. The most obvious tragedy is
[38:04] Ray's storyline. He's got the most eye-catching
[38:06] character, but a closer look really uncovers something truly
[38:09] magical in Gleeson's performance.
[38:11] Yeah, it's there under the surface and it's left unsaid for
[38:14] the most part, but he eeks it out with his physical
[38:17] performance. Just these Such so many lovely
[38:20] little nuances. Just these little looks.
[38:22] Yeah, he is amazing. Bruges may be purgatory for
[38:25] Rare, but it also is for Ken. He's gone to Bruges to die.
[38:28] We just don't know it until the final rare.
[38:30] Yeah. Ken's got this hugely tragic
[38:33] pass where he's lost his wife and he'll forever be indebted to
[38:35] Harry because of the choices he made as a result, and it's
[38:39] written all over his face. What does he have to live for,
[38:41] aside from mentoring Rain giving him the opportunity to get away?
[38:44] Yeah. He's still wearing his wedding
[38:46] ring as well, isn't he? He is, yeah.
[38:47] Very much, yeah. That that hangs heavy on him,
[38:50] yeah. And hangs heavy as well.
[38:51] When he gets to the gun, he goes, are you going to do it?
[38:53] Of course I'm going to do it. It's what I do.
[38:54] It's what I'm going to kill somebody.
[38:56] But it's not going to be Ray. Yeah and on the funny side of
[38:59] things, his exasperation and infuriation at Ray when he made
[39:04] three girl around the city. So he can go on his days and and
[39:07] he does that thing with the chairs mat that you said he said
[39:09] did we or did we not agree that if I let you go on your day
[39:12] tonight you do the things that I wouldn't do today and you would
[39:15] do them without throwing a fucking Moody like the five year
[39:18] old who dropped all his sweets. Brilliant.
[39:26] All that bits when he asked to go and see the file of blood
[39:30] after. Of course you don't fucking have
[39:32] to. Of course you don't fucking have
[39:34] to. Yeah, it's the bit before that
[39:36] when he explains it all in the whisper he.
[39:39] Was so excited. He brought back the Crusades,
[39:41] right? And it touched, you know.
[39:42] What it said to contain and. It was.
[39:44] It was dry blood. Went to fucking liquid from dry
[39:46] blood. And it's just, it's so
[39:48] beautiful. It's so beautifully done.
[39:50] He doesn't have to do that to that level because all he's
[39:52] doing is accentuating Barrel's performance.
[39:55] Yeah, not his own. It's so selfless.
[39:58] It's great, yeah. He's because rear is doing all
[40:00] the like the rear sidebars. Oh really?
[40:02] Really. That's so interesting.
[40:05] Don't. Care No.
[40:07] He just goes away to the queue and just stands there so
[40:11] defiant, then talking about Gleeson, McDonough said.
[40:14] One of Brendan's strengths is a nightmare is that he makes
[40:17] everything sound and seems so naturalistic, which is what
[40:20] we're making that anyway. Like he's just making it up on
[40:22] the spot, which feels exactly right.
[40:25] Also his natural warmth and humanity and his joy of life
[40:28] shine through in most everything he does.
[40:30] Yeah, without doubt. He likes the screen up.
[40:33] Yeah, hold on. And on the flip side of that,
[40:34] Gleason said there is a soul to Martin's work.
[40:37] It's robust yet delicate. You have this combination of the
[40:40] worst of humanity speaking, the most conscious, free language,
[40:44] and yet you leave with a feeling of connection to these people.
[40:47] Yeah. Gleason and Farrell, obviously
[40:48] we've talked about it, have built up quite the friendship
[40:51] since in Bruges. It's a wonderful thing to see.
[40:53] It was further cemented by their work on Banshees, yeah.
[40:56] And there's this amazing story Colin Farrell told where he said
[41:00] the moment he first met Brendan Gleeson was at the Chelsea Hotel
[41:03] in Manhattan. And Farrell was really anxious
[41:05] because he knew that Brendan liked to drink.
[41:08] And at this point Farrell had been 18 months sober.
[41:11] And Farrell said a friend and said, will you have a drink?
[41:13] And then Fowled's words. He went with a mini bar and he
[41:16] pulled out 2 bottles of water and said, I have still a
[41:19] sparkling. And in that moment the
[41:21] simplicity of the Jessie told me There's a man that will look
[41:24] after you. There's a man that considers
[41:26] people. Yeah, absolutely.
[41:27] Wonderful. I mean, that's just class.
[41:29] That isn't it. It.
[41:30] Is what a classic, classic pure is.
[41:32] It is, yeah. Great story.
[41:34] Yeah. And with that, we're rounding
[41:36] off the cast with our second Patreon question.
[41:39] This one comes from Liam Savage. Hello, Liam.
[41:41] Hello, Liam. Hello, Liam.
[41:43] Liam says fantastic podcast. Well, thank you very much.
[41:46] That's very kind. Go on.
[41:51] See it again? He says one of my favourites, so
[41:53] thank you very much. And as a man from the Northeast,
[41:56] it's weirdly confident that he's some proper accents in a
[41:59] podcast. All right.
[42:00] OK. Why I'm with the lads, man.
[42:03] Some would disagree. We're trying to tone it down
[42:07] later. We're.
[42:08] Trying We're trying this thing called diction now and again.
[42:12] Glean's question is this. Brendan Gleason and Colin
[42:15] Farrell can now be classed as one of the greatest double acts
[42:17] in movie history, in my opinion. All right.
[42:19] That's fair enough. What other double acts can match
[42:22] or beat the Gleason Farrell? Irish axes of brilliance?
[42:26] Right, Westy? Do you want to hear that?
[42:27] I. Mean I've got a few that always
[42:29] shine for me, but what I've tried to go for are the ones
[42:32] that were a little bit mismatched.
[42:34] It's a classic. De Niro and Gordon in Midnight
[42:37] Run. Yes.
[42:38] Travolta. Samuel Jackson.
[42:40] Pulp Fiction. I think they're beautiful
[42:41] together on the screen. Arnold and DeVito and Twins.
[42:44] I think that's just wonderful. Back and forth and what I really
[42:48] enjoyed. And I watched it again with the
[42:49] kids and I forgotten how good their chemistry was.
[42:51] Is Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones and the first Men in
[42:54] Black. Oh.
[42:54] Incredible. Oh yeah.
[42:56] Really, really brilliant. It's the straight man and the
[42:58] comedy foil, I think, for me, then them for us.
[43:01] It's up there for me. And then I'll put Gleason and
[43:03] Farrell in that as well. Very nice.
[43:05] Yeah, I looked at this from a bit more of like a historical
[43:08] perspective and I thought Laurel and Hardy.
[43:11] Well yeah, Lauren Hardy, the start of the whole thing.
[43:14] Still one of the absolute very best.
[43:16] The nail dynamic straight out. And you know so many people were
[43:19] in their shadow and that gives you Aberdeen Costello and Bob
[43:22] and Bing Crosby, personal favourites Thor Lemon and Matt
[43:25] Owl together. It is gold every time.
[43:28] Redford and Newman, yeah, but you have seen the Sting.
[43:31] Love those guys And then I don't think you can talk double act
[43:34] without getting around to Shane Black because that's what he
[43:36] does. He does the best two favourites
[43:38] of ours Falconer, Robert Downey, Junior in Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang
[43:42] and obviously Gosselin and Crowe in the Nice guys.
[43:45] Sensational. Incredible.
[43:47] Yeah. No rigs and Matar for you, man.
[43:49] Well, I want to do you know, not go the obvious route.
[43:52] I didn't hear Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor.
[43:56] Which I would. No, we're leaving that for you.
[43:57] That's why. Yeah.
[43:59] That's yeah. And the other ones I had grodden
[44:03] and De Niro, Glover and Gibson, obviously Gibson.
[44:07] We don't talk about them these days, but there's magic in those
[44:10] performances, certainly in the first in the first film.
[44:13] Yeah, definitely the first one. Yeah, but I can't get enough of
[44:16] Gleason and Farrell. I want these to star in Martin
[44:18] McDonough films until I die. Oh.
[44:20] Absolutely, absolutely. So thank you very much for your
[44:23] question, Liam. I hope that satisfies it, yes.
[44:25] Thanks Liam. Thank you mate.
[44:27] So we haven't forgotten about the other cast members.
[44:29] We will be talking about RAF finds as Ari later.
[44:32] Yes, we will. We've talked about Clemens
[44:34] Palsy, she's wonderful. We'll talk a little bit about
[44:36] Jordan Prentice as well as Jimmy.
[44:38] Yes, both deserve a shout out for their great work.
[44:41] Brilliant. But in Bruges is all about one
[44:43] of the ATR Ms. favorite double acts, Colin Farrell and Brendan
[44:46] Glees. Yeah, absolutely.
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[46:09] The middle. The second act brings with it
[46:13] Rey's disastrous date with Chloe and a devastating phone call
[46:17] from Harry. Yeah, it's a wild night full of
[46:20] extreme violence and hilarity, and I'm starting off with the
[46:23] date. Very good, yes.
[46:25] Yeah, if you would write this down, it's the worst date ever,
[46:29] but perfect for a character like Rey.
[46:32] Rey beats up a couple in a swish restaurant, realizes that his
[46:36] date is a criminal, she has a boyfriend, and he blinds
[46:38] somebody. I mean, you couldn't you.
[46:40] I mean, you have wrote it. McDonough did right there.
[46:42] But it's it's crazy. Night balances out.
[46:47] On Chloe for a moment, I think she's representative of
[46:49] Mcdonough's vision overall and the themes of the film.
[46:52] If she's alluring and an inviting.
[46:55] But then she slowly reveals the darker side.
[46:57] In this restaurant scene, she clearly has a twisted sense of
[47:00] humour. And then we find out that she
[47:02] does sell drugs and that she robs tourists at gunpoint using
[47:05] the very thing that made her appealing in the 1st place.
[47:08] And that's is what Bruce does. It invites you in with his
[47:10] beauty, then shoots you in the alcoves.
[47:12] And I mean, how could Chloe be attracted to somebody who says
[47:15] these kinds of jokes about her hometown and about children?
[47:19] There's obviously something very dark about her soul, but the
[47:21] smoke and bit the guy is an utter prick.
[47:27] Regardless, if you don't like smoking, he's got a valid point,
[47:29] yeah, but you can't complain if you're in the smoking section.
[47:32] No, exactly. Yeah.
[47:34] And Ray just can't help himself. There's no way with his hair
[47:38] trigger that he wouldn't let this go away.
[47:41] His line of question and completely baffles the as we
[47:44] find out later, Canadian is that what the Vietnamese would say?
[47:47] What is he talking? The Vietnamese, The Vietnamese?
[47:51] The. Fact The Vietnamese.
[47:53] Got to do with it. You know exactly what he's
[47:54] talking about. It's so.
[47:56] Broad strokes. It's ridiculous.
[47:59] This whole xenophobia he has is clearly from his sheltered
[48:02] upbringing. Yeah, I think he's only been to
[48:04] Dublin in his life before going to London as a hit man.
[48:06] Yeah, and that's for John Lennon is such an off the wall comment.
[48:10] It's so funny though, if he blames America, All of America,
[48:16] all of America. And then when he says later on
[48:18] he was Canadian, well, they didn't kill John Lennon today.
[48:24] God. I mean, he doesn't need much
[48:26] encouragement to hate other nationalities.
[48:28] And that's spores. He's he's been a Beatles fan
[48:30] since he was a kid and he's harbored this hatred around for
[48:33] the Americans killed John Lennon.
[48:34] Yeah, right. First one I meet that crosses
[48:37] me. Which comes out of nowhere on
[48:42] both of them. I mean, she hits the table with
[48:44] some force. Yeah.
[48:45] Bang a bottle. Yeah.
[48:47] No, don't bother. Bang.
[48:48] Yeah. And this is what the film is all
[48:49] about. Makes you laugh 1st and then
[48:51] consider your actions afterwards.
[48:53] Yes, we shouldn't be laughing at this kind of violence.
[48:55] No. And raise brand of humor either.
[48:57] But it's very funny, yeah. He walks out of that restaurant
[49:00] saying I've never hit a woman, haven't just hit a woman 5
[49:03] seconds earlier, yeah. I heard a woman just coming at
[49:06] us with a bow. Yeah, and then when they're back
[49:09] at her place again, it's comedy and tragedy.
[49:12] The farce around him being held at gunpoint and shooting a guy
[49:15] in the face with a blank? Shockingly hilarious.
[49:17] Yeah. What I love though, is the
[49:19] contrast of that scene to what's going on with Ken when he gets
[49:22] that call from Harry. Because the film's done a great
[49:26] job of building up Harry even though he's been off screen.
[49:28] And it's interesting that I think until the very end he only
[49:31] ever interacts with Ken and the interactions with Ken build up.
[49:34] It goes from a letter to a telephone conversation or two to
[49:37] the eventual face to face meet. But I just love this first phone
[49:41] conversation because it starts off and it's so confusing, you
[49:44] know? Ken is obviously covering for
[49:45] Ray being out with Chloe, so he says he's in the toilet.
[49:48] And Harry's response? Is he doing a wee or a poo?
[49:52] That's horrible. Like was that manner, what do
[49:55] we? Think that's really childish as
[49:57] well? He's really childish, but you
[50:00] get the sense that there is history between Ken and Harry,
[50:02] and they do go back away. But Even so, Ken still doesn't
[50:05] know how Harry will take certain things.
[50:07] So when he casually mentions that he's enjoying Bruce but
[50:10] Ray, isn't that silence for Harry?
[50:12] Discourse. What?
[50:14] The tension is that the. Tension.
[50:17] Ken knows his face drops. Oh yeah, because he knows he
[50:20] this isn't even something he should try to laugh off.
[50:23] Harry is so volatile. And so what's going on, you
[50:25] know, how can fucking Swanson fucking be somebody's fucking
[50:28] thing? Like, it's terrifying but
[50:30] hilarious at the same time. Not someone who gets so angry
[50:33] about that. But the bit that I think is the
[50:35] funniest in this scene is when Ken gets some calm down by
[50:38] spinning them that absolute bullshit.
[50:41] Do you know what he said to me? Ken?
[50:44] I know I'm awake, but I feel like I'm in a dream.
[50:46] And Gleason, he's incredible. Just lying.
[50:49] Back on the is this going? To.
[50:52] Work. I think I got away with that 1,
[50:55] so it's really, really funny. But then it absolutely turns in
[50:59] its head when Harry just goes because he wasn't a bad kid, was
[51:01] he? And also he's some Bahrain the
[51:04] past tense. Past tense, yeah.
[51:06] And Ken knows immediately what Harry means.
[51:08] He now knows why he's there, what he's got to do and he can
[51:11] see the devastation on his face. So it's a brilliant scene and I
[51:14] just don't know if Gleason's ever been better than this scene
[51:17] because it's all him on the phone.
[51:18] It is, yeah. And the great thing about that
[51:20] scene, as well as when they're on set as Mcdonough's reading
[51:22] back Harry's lines. So fantastic.
[51:25] Is reacting to like McDonagh talk and Donna like knows
[51:28] exactly what that timing is going to be in the way that
[51:30] that's much to find is doing it just over the phone is
[51:33] incredible. There's a nice little northern
[51:35] this scene to Touch of Evil, the awesome World Series.
[51:37] Watching the TV, isn't it? Yeah, it's one of the most
[51:39] famous long takes in cinema history, that openness.
[51:42] And then this in itself is one day.
[51:44] And this one is, yeah, 6 minutes long to technically brilliant
[51:47] stuff. Impressive.
[51:48] Incredibly impressive from. So, so easy to miss that it's
[51:51] one day. That is, yeah, very much.
[51:54] I would go for the highly controversial moment where
[51:57] they're at the bar, they were introduced that they've got
[51:59] cocaine and they go back to the hotel room and this focus,
[52:04] they're a racist dwarf and they start getting these
[52:06] conversations. Now, for me, that would make a
[52:10] good film and it does make a good film.
[52:14] I imagine Colin Farrell is very, very comfortable in this
[52:17] situation. I think he's been there many,
[52:20] many times in somebody's kitchen at like 5:00 in the morning off
[52:24] his face talking about shit like this.
[52:26] And it's the way that Farrell's performance, and this really
[52:29] pulls off when he's that cigarette is the only thing in
[52:32] his life. Yeah.
[52:36] I'm definitely fighting with the Vietnamese, gasping for it.
[52:39] And you always have these elements and these different
[52:41] elements that are brought into it where it's such a ridiculous
[52:44] thing to talk about. And I think it's just the way
[52:45] the whole thing is personified and made into it.
[52:48] It's almost funny, but at the same time it's really relatable.
[52:52] Where we've had these conversations where you've had a
[52:54] little bit too much, you've gone back to someone's house and
[52:56] someone. 'S Ridiculous.
[52:57] Someone said something ridiculous, but you kind of have
[52:59] to back it up because it's such a ridiculous thing to talk about
[53:02] the blacks versus the whites and all the black midgets going to
[53:05] fight all the white midgets. Oh, that'd be a good film.
[53:07] All right, great. And so you don't decide this
[53:09] shit, man, but it's just Gleason's interjection because
[53:11] it's so ridiculous. And then he turns around and you
[53:14] find out that his wife was black and was killed by a white man.
[53:18] And where do I stand in all this blood and carnage?
[53:20] Yeah. And he said, well, you're gonna
[53:22] have to make your own decision of this.
[53:23] And it's just, again, such a ridiculous thing that could have
[53:26] been spun out of control. Gleason comes in and just really
[53:30] anchors it down and locks it down.
[53:32] It's so busy immediately when you're watching the whole thing
[53:35] and you're sober to it and you're like, Oh my God.
[53:37] And then the brilliant thing about this whole conversation is
[53:40] that what is set up to know that Harry killed him, that Harry
[53:44] killed the person who killed his wife.
[53:46] Yeah, And he had his back. And that's how important Harry
[53:49] is to him in this setting. Which could have been sore
[53:53] throwaway, but it isn't. And and Ray knows that.
[53:56] Yeah, and then it finishes quite funnily with that karate chop.
[54:01] It's just like, I don't know, you don't know karate.
[54:03] Back then they both say, don't say you didn't have a common
[54:07] Yeah. And Gleason says it first, sure.
[54:09] And then he's like he finishes with short ass.
[54:10] But if he'd finished with what Gleason had said, don't say he
[54:13] didn't have it coming, which is a fairly straight, you know,
[54:15] grown up thing to say is like, this is too much for me.
[54:18] Two monkey who was on a racist warfare.
[54:20] I'm fucking out here. It could be really offensive.
[54:23] It should be really offensive, but all of a sudden it's really
[54:26] heartfelt and I think that's just starting.
[54:28] Mcdonough's right in his direction and the performances.
[54:30] I think it's just a wonderful scene.
[54:32] Great. Yeah.
[54:33] I just don't think there's a funnier line in this film than
[54:36] Jimmy saying you don't know how much shit I've had to take off
[54:39] black midgets, man. That's understandable.
[54:43] Or something. He's like, yeah, it's really
[54:44] understandable what everything. It's just, that's hilarious.
[54:50] That's hilarious. It builds and builds and builds
[54:52] where you're just like in a comfortable state of being like,
[54:55] oh, I'm in this conversation now.
[54:57] And then Gleason goes back. Sledgehammer.
[54:59] Yeah, yeah, great. There's a number of deleted
[55:01] scenes from the film. Most of them build on Reyes,
[55:03] boredom and Ken's enchantment with Bruges.
[55:05] There's one flashback to Harry as a child in Bruges, and a
[55:09] hilarious one with Harry on the train making his way into the
[55:11] city. Yeah, the one that stands out
[55:13] the most, I think is the one that gives a back story to Ken
[55:15] and Harry's relationship because it depicts a young Harry, played
[55:19] by Matt Smith. Actually, eventually, the death
[55:21] of Ken's wife, it's pretty shocking as well, That brutal,
[55:24] that one. Yeah.
[55:25] Yeah, we get more of Ken's past in this scene in particularly,
[55:28] But the one that you're talking about, man, is really bizarre.
[55:30] Harry waltzes into a police station and decapitates A
[55:33] policeman. Yeah.
[55:34] Who was responsible for killing Ken's wife?
[55:36] Yeah, it's very crudely done in the lead scene.
[55:39] And I suppose it throws up the question, how the hell did Harry
[55:42] think he could get away with something like that?
[55:43] Yeah, just waltzing into a police station and beheading the
[55:46] policeman. Yeah.
[55:47] I mean, he's crazy enough to do it, but how?
[55:49] Didn't he go down for it? No.
[55:50] Yeah, I think the only reason they left it out was because the
[55:52] CGI didn't look good enough for the effect.
[55:54] Wasn't it? Wasn't good?
[55:55] It's very rough, isn't it? Yeah.
[55:57] Yeah, very much so. But I think it's really, it's a
[55:59] really important plot point. And all they leave it to is
[56:01] this, like, did they get him? Yeah.
[56:03] Harry. Harry, What has gone?
[56:05] Yeah. Jordan Prentice plays Jimmy in
[56:07] the film, he said of his character.
[56:08] Jimmy only adds to the unavoidable surreal nature of
[56:12] the whole place and experience. Buchanan, especially Ray, yeah,
[56:15] he's very disgruntled, angry soul.
[56:17] And as an actor, I love playing the scenes where Jimmy voices
[56:19] his bizarre theories. He's great as well.
[56:22] Me. Yes, he's very good.
[56:24] McDonagh said though about writing a little person in the
[56:26] script. He said that because the
[56:28] character is an actor, it allows you to explore Docker themes.
[56:31] And he said, because obviously all they ever get to play is an
[56:33] L4A Munchkin or something like that.
[56:35] So I kind of want to explore how does that affect you?
[56:38] If you are a good actor, how do you live?
[56:40] What do you turn to, how to make you feel?
[56:42] In this case, he turns to cook and hookers.
[56:44] And I mean Mcdonough's outlook. He might just be on to something
[56:48] and like don't be offended immediately.
[56:50] Explore it immediately and find out what is upsetting you, what
[56:54] is the stereotype and address it and make it stupid.
[56:57] Yeah, yeah, make it stupid. So the people go, well, I'm not
[57:00] going to do that anymore. Yeah, it's maybe.
[57:03] It's a really great outlook. Yeah, I I agree with you.
[57:06] So a wild night for certain. And with mourning comes the day
[57:10] of reckoning. Next up, Ken stops Ray killing
[57:15] himself in the park, packs him off on a train, and calls Harry
[57:19] with the very bad news. Yeah, and I'm starting with the
[57:21] scene in the park. It's so incredibly complex, this
[57:24] scene. Ken doesn't want to kill Ray,
[57:26] but he has to. But when he knees, Ray pulls a
[57:29] gun out on himself and Ken stops him.
[57:31] Now, as Harry quite rightly points out later in the film,
[57:34] not only have you refused to kill the boy, you've stopped the
[57:37] boy from killing himself. Which was solved my problem.
[57:39] Which would have solved your problem, Which sounds like it
[57:41] would have solved the boy's problem.
[57:42] Yeah, it really is that simple. Yeah, But McDonough weaves this
[57:46] complex web of human emotion and compassion into proceedings.
[57:49] I think this is the moment where Ken suddenly realizes his colon.
[57:53] Yeah, he's been a lost soul for years after the death of his
[57:56] wife. And now this time in this place
[57:58] with a soul to save, he knows what his purpose is.
[58:01] It's a beautifully realized bit of writing.
[58:04] And on top of that you've got heart wrenching performance from
[58:08] Colin Farrell. We can all feel his pain.
[58:10] There's real emotion. But the fact that he's chosen a
[58:13] child's playground has his suicide spot is darkly comic.
[58:16] Yeah, I suppose in his heart this is the obvious choice to do
[58:19] it, to repent his sins. But I mean, have a day off, Ray.
[58:23] These kids don't want to see your brain splattered all over
[58:25] the swings. I think the main thing is, is
[58:27] you see a child playing with the mother and he does see children
[58:30] in the film and it goes into slow motion when that happens.
[58:33] But I think what he wants to do is just witness a child being
[58:36] alive before he takes himself out and he sees see them happy
[58:41] and see them enjoy live. And that's why he goes to a kids
[58:43] park and seeing them play and seeing them happy, Yeah, which
[58:46] is why. Then go go go around to the
[58:47] alcoves afterwards. Well, maybe he's going to put
[58:49] the kids left at that point. There's nobody there.
[58:51] All he does is watch the kid when the kids left.
[58:53] He pulls the gun out. Yeah, no, but there'll be kids
[58:55] coming later. Well, maybe.
[58:57] But that's not his problem then, is it?
[59:00] Doesn't mind if they see the mess.
[59:01] I mean, it just confirms Rey's naivety and that he is a child
[59:05] at heart. Yeah, yeah, and there are two
[59:07] standout moments of humour. When Ray asked Ken what the fuck
[59:10] he was doing, he says nothing as he hastily shuffles the gun
[59:13] behind his back, Just behind the great timer.
[59:15] Yeah, yeah. But the laugh outline for me is
[59:19] in the aftermath of this scene, the two fellas are sitting on
[59:21] some kind of child's apparatus and Ken takes Ray's gun and Ray
[59:26] says a great day This has turned out to be.
[59:28] I'm suicidal. You May tries to kill me.
[59:30] Me gun gets nicked and we're still in fucking bruise,
[59:33] slapping his eyes, so angry. He really hates the place.
[59:41] So that balance that we've been talking about all the way
[59:43] through, It's there in this scene and it's magnificent
[59:46] stuff. Yeah, after this.
[59:48] This is when we finally get to meet Harry when Ken rings him.
[59:53] And this is the scene that sealed the deal for me with this
[59:55] film. This was just, this is magic.
[59:58] This is amazing. I love Ken on the other end of
[1:00:01] the phone, just thrown his words back at him quite like Bruce.
[1:00:04] It's like a fucking fairy tale or something that just hangs up.
[1:00:08] And then that cut defines the first time you've seen him.
[1:00:12] It's a perfectly timed amount of silent rage in disbelief, and
[1:00:18] he's just taking in what Ken's done.
[1:00:19] So he's looking out the window before he starts laying into
[1:00:22] that foreign handset, and he's so angry he smashes it onto the
[1:00:26] floor but picks it up to put it back on the desk just so we can
[1:00:29] keep on smashing it. And then this leads to the line
[1:00:33] of the film for me, You know, his wife comes in Harry.
[1:00:36] It's an inanimate fucking object.
[1:00:38] You're an inanimate fucking object, yeah.
[1:00:42] Unreal. Amazing.
[1:00:44] Amazing because we've all been so annoyed at someone or
[1:00:48] something. We've said something ridiculous
[1:00:50] because it's the first thing you can think of.
[1:00:53] Yeah, it's her reaction when she walks back into the sitting
[1:00:55] room, just like we're shrugging. He's had it again.
[1:00:59] Like he does this every week. Yeah, own inanimate fucking
[1:01:03] object. It's just being burned into my
[1:01:06] brain from the first view. And it's amazing.
[1:01:09] It's just a great introduction to him because, yeah, he's
[1:01:12] terrified. He's violent, but look at him
[1:01:14] with his kids. He's great with his kids, you
[1:01:16] know. Softly spoiled be.
[1:01:17] Good for mommy and in a motto and continuously.
[1:01:20] He doesn't have like a trophy wife or like a gangster small on
[1:01:23] his arm. He's he's got this vibe of,
[1:01:25] like, he's more like a successful businessman, but he's
[1:01:28] got this flip side to it, yeah. And he's great with her as well.
[1:01:31] Like, I'm sorry for calling you an inanimate object.
[1:01:34] Like, genuinely sorrowful. I was upset.
[1:01:36] I was. Upset, Yeah.
[1:01:37] When he's talking to the kids, I've got to go to Bruges and
[1:01:43] then he's talking about Ken. He's looking at his kids.
[1:01:45] When he's talking about Ken. Yeah, you know the kids, They
[1:01:48] know who we are. Yeah.
[1:01:49] It's so much depth to it. It's amazing.
[1:01:51] It is and then it sets up. The other thing which obviously
[1:01:53] comes really important is underneath it all, he's a man of
[1:01:56] principle, you know, He says survive.
[1:01:57] It's a matter of honor. And that's why he's going by
[1:01:59] himself. He's not sending the boys.
[1:02:01] He says that to his kids. Yeah, matter of.
[1:02:04] Honor. It's a matter of honor.
[1:02:05] It sums the character up. Yeah, great.
[1:02:07] Pretty. I love that scene so much.
[1:02:09] It's. Incredible.
[1:02:10] I'll go for the bit after that. They get Ray on the train.
[1:02:13] He says he's going to kill himself in a couple of weeks
[1:02:15] anyway, You know you're right. And then the door.
[1:02:18] That's shrunk. But that's short.
[1:02:19] Watch it again. It starts like in front of
[1:02:22] Gleason. He's looking into the camera.
[1:02:24] Camera pans round, comes around and reveals Gleason stand on the
[1:02:28] platform as it goes away. That's really powerful.
[1:02:31] And he's just sat there, see the guy come on and you just think
[1:02:34] this film's going somewhere else.
[1:02:35] It's meant to be in Bruges all the time.
[1:02:37] He's on a train now. He's gone somewhere else, as he
[1:02:40] would normally think, and it's a great call.
[1:02:42] But like I've said, there's so many mirrors in this film, so
[1:02:45] many plot mirrors that start and then end and you go away.
[1:02:49] Is this one going to come from? And he said that's him, that's
[1:02:52] the motherfucker. And you're like, oh.
[1:02:54] Shit. But before that, it's Farrell's
[1:02:58] performance for me in this sequence because he's like, he's
[1:03:01] had enough of the script. He's had enough of trying to fit
[1:03:05] in. You heat the could I heat the
[1:03:08] Canadian and he's eyebrows just come into this like, I don't
[1:03:13] know what you're talking about. It's so funny.
[1:03:16] Every time I hear him say you heat the Canadian, we're taking
[1:03:19] you back to Bruges. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
[1:03:23] And then he this, when he's got the realization as well as it's
[1:03:25] could, he's a Canadian. Oh shit, yeah, he knows that.
[1:03:29] Yet he's trying to get away from it and he's getting pulled back.
[1:03:32] And that's incredible for me from a writing point of view,
[1:03:36] from a direction point of view, from a performance point of
[1:03:39] view, where you think this film's going somewhere else and
[1:03:41] it pulls you back, Yeah. So with all the aggressors
[1:03:44] conversion on Bruges, we're headed for a bloody showdown.
[1:03:48] The. Crew.
[1:03:55] The crew on In Bruges brings with it a whip smart screenplay
[1:03:58] from Martin McDonagh, music from a legend in his field, and
[1:04:02] incredible cinematography from a relative unknown.
[1:04:05] Starting off with the screenplay, I'm going to talk
[1:04:07] about the probably the main theme in the writing, and that
[1:04:10] is of Bruges being representative Purgadori for
[1:04:13] Rear. Oh, nice.
[1:04:14] Yeah. He's been sent there by Harry
[1:04:16] before his fate is sealed. This is visualized in the
[1:04:19] Hieronymus Bosch paint and the Last Judgement, which they see
[1:04:22] in the museum. Yeah, it's probably the only
[1:04:24] thing in Bruges that Rear takes a mild interest in, apart from
[1:04:27] women and beer and drugs. I like this one.
[1:04:30] Yeah, what is it about? And these are the layers that
[1:04:35] the film has under the surface. It's a very funny film, very
[1:04:38] violent film full of soul crushing despair and uniquely
[1:04:41] optimistic. And under all of that is we've
[1:04:43] this classical art and literature narrative.
[1:04:46] When is this kind of thing ever sat next to a string of
[1:04:49] prejudice jokes towards anyone that everyone sees is different
[1:04:53] to it? It's pretty remarkable thing
[1:04:56] that McDonough achieves in his writing here and we'll talk
[1:04:59] about the purgatory again at the end of the film, but also in
[1:05:02] that museum moment. Ray gives his understanding of
[1:05:04] the concept, he says. You weren't really shit, but you
[1:05:07] weren't all that great either. Like Tottenham as a Tottenham
[1:05:12] support myself. For you.
[1:05:14] I was going to ask what does this mean?
[1:05:17] Because it doesn't mean the place surely?
[1:05:19] Is it their placement on the table or something?
[1:05:23] We've talked about it as if it's an alien concept.
[1:05:26] Yeah. Play something on the table.
[1:05:28] The Premier League of other like second or something?
[1:05:31] No, they are usually shit. Right, OK.
[1:05:35] Usually kind of mid table. We've been doing better in the
[1:05:38] last, say 10 years, but we're never won anything for you, OK?
[1:05:41] So that's what that's what Ray is talking about here, and it's
[1:05:45] a fair cop, really. McDonough said that this line is
[1:05:47] a constant source of anxiety in his life.
[1:05:50] If Tottenham do turn a corner and start to pick up trophies,
[1:05:53] this will render the line obsolete.
[1:05:55] I think McDonough is safe on that one though.
[1:05:57] And as a side note on the dialogue in the film, I think it
[1:06:00] just bristles with energy, offbeat humor delivered by
[1:06:03] offbeat characters like Yuri, the local heavy, giving guns out
[1:06:07] like there's no tomorrow when he's talking about the alcohol
[1:06:09] and he says he used this word. Alcove, yes.
[1:06:13] Or nooks and crannies. Nooks and crannies, Yes.
[1:06:17] How uncool is his house as well though?
[1:06:20] That looks amazing. It's like a Museum of shit.
[1:06:22] It's fantastic. There's no way you could be
[1:06:24] comfortable there. You want some dim Dimms.
[1:06:26] I don't know why that's so irresistible, but it is nooks
[1:06:29] and crannies. I absolutely love the Rhea guy.
[1:06:32] I love them. Fantastic.
[1:06:34] What? I want to focus on the use of
[1:06:36] language. Not so much the profanity, but
[1:06:37] the insults, which are like 90% of Rhea's dialogue.
[1:06:41] Yes, because I do know people who've sat down to watch this
[1:06:44] and said I had to turn it off. I couldn't cope with the
[1:06:47] language. Right, and I'm understandable.
[1:06:50] Good. Yes, it is good judge character
[1:06:55] there. Classic Westy.
[1:06:56] Classic Westy. And I do get that because it can
[1:06:59] be tough to listen to when certainly some of the things Ray
[1:07:01] comes out or hair raising to say the least.
[1:07:04] But I think it's worth pointing out if you ever read or listen
[1:07:07] to an interview with Mark McDonough, he's clearly a very
[1:07:09] intelligent and erudite man. He doesn't litter his own speech
[1:07:13] or interviews with the torrent of sea bombs.
[1:07:16] And I think it's a really good example of realizing that just
[1:07:19] because a writer writes a character a certain way, it
[1:07:22] doesn't mean that the writer agrees with either what they say
[1:07:25] or how they say it. It's just about how that
[1:07:27] character is. And with three of those insults
[1:07:29] that constantly come out of his mouth, like we say, he's
[1:07:31] obviously had a very sheltered life and he just doesn't
[1:07:33] understand the world really outside of Dublin.
[1:07:36] At all and. It tells he has no filter.
[1:07:39] And for me it's a way to make you unsure how much should you
[1:07:42] like this guy? Because on one hand you've got
[1:07:43] Farrell with this really charismatic, funny performance,
[1:07:46] putting on the other hand, he killed a kid and then yeah, I
[1:07:49] didn't do that. The language that he uses and it
[1:07:52] keeps your fancy get at the end of the film and you think I
[1:07:54] don't know if he's going to live or die here.
[1:07:56] And I also don't know how I feel about that, like have I forgiven
[1:08:00] him or is? This is a remarkable thing.
[1:08:02] Yeah. Or is he irredeemable?
[1:08:03] And this is fair enough, what's happened to him.
[1:08:05] And that, to me, is why McDonough puts that language in
[1:08:08] Ray's mouth. He doesn't put in Ken's mouth.
[1:08:10] Ken never says anything like that.
[1:08:12] Harry does occasionally, but again, with Harry, you, you're
[1:08:15] not supposed to really like Harry.
[1:08:16] He's funny but not likable. And I think it's the sign of
[1:08:19] someone quite brave to write lines of dialogue where he's
[1:08:22] essentially saying I'm going to make you laugh at something you
[1:08:24] shouldn't be laughing at. And it's the shocking nature of
[1:08:28] it which makes you laugh. And The thing is, he's not doing
[1:08:31] it just for shock value. Personally, there's nothing I
[1:08:34] dislike more than shock comedians because I find that
[1:08:36] quite boring. Like, anyone could say something
[1:08:38] defensive. You get up on stage crap, yeah,
[1:08:41] and it takes more thought of it, but it takes real intelligence
[1:08:44] to say This is why my character is saying these particular
[1:08:47] words. And yes, it's horrible, but
[1:08:49] that's the point and I think with Donna's right and treat his
[1:08:52] audience with a huge amount of intelligence to understand that.
[1:08:56] Yeah, yeah, very much, he said. The word is more about the
[1:08:59] rhythm, he said. I listened to a character talk
[1:09:01] in my head and that's what they say and that's what I hear.
[1:09:04] And he said. But as a person, I don't swear.
[1:09:07] Yeah, yeah, he never does. I've never heard him swear on an
[1:09:09] interview or anything. But doing research into this,
[1:09:11] there are 126 uses of the F bomb in the film, around 1.18 per
[1:09:18] minute. Rabbit Firewell, I mean, you
[1:09:20] could top that if we just let you go for 107 minutes.
[1:09:22] Absolutely, yeah. All the shit you got to cut out.
[1:09:26] Cheesy swears a lot. It's the same as Tarantino not
[1:09:31] sitting there just doing the end bomb every minute.
[1:09:34] But he knows that his characters need to see it, and he's not
[1:09:36] afraid to understand that. His characters understand that
[1:09:39] language, but he doesn't necessarily understand that
[1:09:42] language. And it's really brave to be able
[1:09:45] to put that down and think that people don't judge you for it.
[1:09:49] You don't think that that's me personally.
[1:09:51] I'll be terrified to write that down in the screenplay and all
[1:09:53] this kind of sort. Of happen to come from
[1:09:55] somewhere, yeah. Of course it does.
[1:09:57] So I think he just understands that.
[1:09:59] And I think that comes down to the way that he balances it with
[1:10:03] an introduction and then a resolution with a lot of what he
[1:10:06] says makes sense later on. And it has a reason and it has a
[1:10:09] purpose. And it's not just said to be
[1:10:11] offensive. He says it for his characters to
[1:10:13] see it and for his characters to have an arc and for them to come
[1:10:16] from 1 route to another route. And he's done it time and time
[1:10:20] again. To me, she was like a real
[1:10:22] intelligence. Like Matt said always, I'll
[1:10:24] always say Tarantino's fearless. I always will.
[1:10:27] And Mcdonough's the same. Is is one of them real artists.
[1:10:32] I'm not even going to call him a writer.
[1:10:33] I'm not even going to call him a director.
[1:10:35] I'm just going to call him an artist.
[1:10:37] But someone didn't get something and make it accessible, make it
[1:10:41] funny, make it sad. And how many times you sat next
[1:10:45] to someone ago, You know, I know you're a sea bomb and you're
[1:10:49] this and you want to just express yourself in that way
[1:10:52] where it's so blunt and it's so matter of fact, but it's not
[1:10:56] offensive. There's love in it, and he
[1:10:59] understands it. And I think that's what he is as
[1:11:01] a writer. And I think that's why it takes
[1:11:02] him so long between films. Yeah, because there's so much
[1:11:06] emotion and he wants to get it right every time.
[1:11:08] And I really appreciate that. I agree.
[1:11:10] Yeah, everything's perfectly placed in a McDonough film.
[1:11:12] It is nothing out of place. Everything is has a purpose.
[1:11:15] Yeah, for me it does. Yeah, definitely.
[1:11:17] I don't know that McDonough conceived the idea for in Bruce
[1:11:21] after day trip to the place itself and he'd actually went
[1:11:23] there on a date, but the date cancelled on him.
[1:11:26] So he was left alone in the city trying to keep himself
[1:11:28] entertained and he said he was initially enchanted by the
[1:11:31] architecture and the history, but he soon became bored because
[1:11:34] he said there wasn't much to do apart from go to Art gallows.
[1:11:36] He just wound up getting drunk instead and he said that kind of
[1:11:40] became 2 characters in my head. The cultural loving geek and the
[1:11:43] drunken slut, yeah. You can totally see that though.
[1:11:46] Like if you go there on a date and you get turned down, you
[1:11:49] can. I want to appreciate this place,
[1:11:51] how quickly that's going to be worn out.
[1:11:52] It's going to be pretty instantaneous, yeah.
[1:11:55] Yeah, he said. So I just let those characters
[1:11:57] speak in my head, and I thought, why would these two people be in
[1:12:00] a town like Bruges when they don't want to be here?
[1:12:03] And that's when the whole idea of them being hit men came up
[1:12:06] and their escape and a horrific job that went wrong.
[1:12:08] Yeah, he actually stayed in the same hotel room that the boys
[1:12:12] did. Yeah, on his original visit to
[1:12:14] the city. You can tell it's his
[1:12:16] experiences going to these places, want to get something
[1:12:18] from it and just being like, I'm not getting anything from it,
[1:12:21] what would I do? No, I don't.
[1:12:22] Do I have to go and touch it? No, I don't have to.
[1:12:24] You can see him talking to himself.
[1:12:25] You. Don't have to.
[1:12:27] In his original script, the two hit men were from London, but
[1:12:30] this was changed when Gleason and Farrell came on board.
[1:12:33] I thought it was ridiculous to make them put on London accents.
[1:12:36] It's such an easy change to make them Irish gunmen working out of
[1:12:39] London and I think it kind of adds an extra friction to the
[1:12:42] whole thing of having British boss with two Irish good men.
[1:12:46] It is kind of like Island as well, isn't it Bruges?
[1:12:48] Yeah, but it's got that history. Do it?
[1:12:51] Yeah. Yeah, that would have been the
[1:12:52] Guy Ritchie spin off that were hated from the poster.
[1:12:55] Would have, yeah. There have been similarities
[1:12:57] drawn between Harold Pinter's play The Dumb Waiter about two
[1:13:00] hitmen waiting for a job and shooting.
[1:13:02] The breeze. That was a big influence on it.
[1:13:04] And the two aliases that are given at the hotel are Crannum
[1:13:07] and Blakely. The actors Kenneth Crannum and
[1:13:09] Colin Blakely starred in the TV adaptation of The Dumb Waiter.
[1:13:12] All right. Nice.
[1:13:13] Nice tie. Yeah, lovely.
[1:13:15] So despite some clear influences, I think we all agree
[1:13:18] an incredible piece of writing from Martin McDonagh.
[1:13:20] Yep. Next up we're talking about the
[1:13:24] score for In Bruges, composed by Cohen favorite Carter Burwell.
[1:13:28] Yes, Matt, the music in the film.
[1:13:30] What are your thoughts? I think the music was one of the
[1:13:33] first giveaways that this wasn't going to be the film I was
[1:13:36] worried it might be because I think, yeah, definitely.
[1:13:39] Apart from that guitar at the end, which kicks in when Harry's
[1:13:41] chasing Ray, everything else I think feels very timeless, like
[1:13:45] just lots of these very like melancholic piano melodies.
[1:13:49] Just very subtle, just layered over the top.
[1:13:51] And you know, there's no, like edgy indie songs slapped over
[1:13:55] the top of scenes to like, Oh yeah, this will give it a kick
[1:13:58] up the ass. This will make it seem cool.
[1:13:59] The film's not about that. It's not investing that.
[1:14:02] It's one of those cases where, you know, the music is always
[1:14:04] about serving the scene. It's the only song you get is
[1:14:07] Ragman Rode at the end, which does work really well with Ken's
[1:14:10] death and it is the only song there.
[1:14:12] So you know, I I really appreciate how it is removed
[1:14:14] from the whole kind of Britpop Guy Ritchie Edgar Wright type of
[1:14:18] soundtrack, a song every 10 minutes to jazz it up a bit.
[1:14:22] Don't get me wrong, they have their place and they work in
[1:14:24] their films. Oh yeah.
[1:14:26] That wouldn't work for this film.
[1:14:27] Yeah, there's certainly the otherworldliness field of the
[1:14:30] music, like it's from a bygone era.
[1:14:32] I really feel it does evoke that fairy tale that we keep hearing
[1:14:35] about, but there's a sinister side to it that never is too far
[1:14:39] away from the surface. Just bubble in London.
[1:14:41] So no matter how funny the film gets, we can never get too
[1:14:44] comfortable because we can feel that there's something sinister
[1:14:47] lurking around the corner with the music brood.
[1:14:49] Yeah, yeah, it's full of melancholy and sadness.
[1:14:52] Burwell said that it was very important that sitting next to
[1:14:55] the comedy in the film, the music had to be polka straight
[1:14:57] and take itself very seriously, He said The more serious the
[1:15:00] music is, the sillier the goings on in the film will appear.
[1:15:03] Yeah, and I agree with that. It puts me in mind of those, you
[1:15:06] know, slightly different tone, but it puts me in mind of those
[1:15:08] great Elmer Bernstein scores for Animal House and Ghostbusters,
[1:15:11] which is straight as a die. Yeah.
[1:15:13] Yeah, this absurd comedy, yeah. Yeah, like Harry's thing.
[1:15:16] Like the music that accompanies Harry.
[1:15:18] It's like, really that boom and dramatic.
[1:15:20] Yeah, yeah, it is. That's he's walking over the
[1:15:22] bridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:15:24] But then that Congress. How ridiculous the scene is when
[1:15:26] he meets Ken. Yeah.
[1:15:28] Yeah, it's like it's like Fargo. It is.
[1:15:30] It's very. It is.
[1:15:31] Yeah, very similar, yeah. Wesley, what about you?
[1:15:34] The music in the film. I find it just very, very
[1:15:37] unselfish and very refrained. He's very much a visual composer
[1:15:41] because you don't notice it. You don't want to turn around
[1:15:43] and buy a Carter Bill well score separately to the film.
[1:15:47] I think it's a perfect marriage between visual and audio, and it
[1:15:52] impacts on every single thing that you see.
[1:15:54] The way that he can support a voice over it just sits
[1:15:58] underneath it and swims. It's like the the audio, like if
[1:16:01] you're watching Ken walk over a bridge, the audio's underneath
[1:16:03] it and that's how it feels when I'm watching this film.
[1:16:06] Like the audio is just in the alcoves, it's in the shadows and
[1:16:09] you're watching when the sun hits, and that's the visual, but
[1:16:12] you're getting everything else from from the shadows.
[1:16:14] And that's, I think that's what Carter Bill does really, really
[1:16:16] well in this. Yeah, a great score, reflecting
[1:16:19] the subdued elegance of the city.
[1:16:22] Yes. Definitely.
[1:16:25] Finally, a man we've not talked about on the shore, I girl
[1:16:28] brilled. I would have said we're unlikely
[1:16:30] to talk about him again, but he's recently shot Alexander
[1:16:33] Payne's the hold overs which he's cutting it for us, so
[1:16:36] there's a chance. Beautiful looking film up but.
[1:16:39] What about his work on In Bruges Westie?
[1:16:41] Yeah, I think what Brill does with this is really support
[1:16:45] Mcdonough's view and his stylistic vision, but doesn't
[1:16:49] lock it down in any real time or moment.
[1:16:54] I'm astonished that this film is as old as it is.
[1:16:57] Every time I watch it I go, oh, Colin Farrell, it's really old
[1:17:00] now. But this came out last year,
[1:17:01] surely, and Bruce came out. It's so fresh. 15 years.
[1:17:05] Ago. Yeah, exactly.
[1:17:06] Look at my daughter. I'm like, this is older than you
[1:17:08] are and I just don't get it because it's just shot in such a
[1:17:12] way that's so classical, that's so selfless in the same way that
[1:17:16] got to be able to the music. I think that what Brill brings
[1:17:19] to this is just exactly what McDonald wanted him to do, and
[1:17:23] he does it so well. I don't really feel that there's
[1:17:25] an argument they're going we should shoot Bruges in like wide
[1:17:28] angles and we need a drawn shot over the church as Ken falls out
[1:17:33] of it. And then it sweeps down and does
[1:17:34] this now, and you see the point of view shot from there, that
[1:17:37] from there, that from there. And it's one of the first films
[1:17:39] where I really don't overanalyze what it's shot on, what lenses
[1:17:44] they used. I don't really care because it
[1:17:46] all just blends into the narrative.
[1:17:49] It all blends into the performance.
[1:17:50] Everything's just such a complete thing.
[1:17:52] I know that I'll never be able to replicate it, so I don't
[1:17:55] really care what it's shot on, even if I knew.
[1:17:57] And even if I got that camera, I couldn't do this.
[1:17:59] So that's how good his work is on it, to be fair.
[1:18:02] Great. Yeah.
[1:18:03] I really like his two shot frame and other characters.
[1:18:05] When they're talking side by side, they seem oddly out of
[1:18:08] place in the frame, which I guess is a reflection of their
[1:18:10] misplace. Yeah, I mean, not just in
[1:18:12] Bruges, but in the world, considering their line of work.
[1:18:15] And Brill focuses on the imposing nature of the city in
[1:18:18] those two shots. And overall, really, it feels
[1:18:21] like the city's almost oppressive in the way that it
[1:18:23] dominates the fame. Yeah, further emphasizing like
[1:18:26] that purgatory theme, like it's Jujun, Ken and Rea.
[1:18:29] It's all very intimate and the camera lingers on faces, not
[1:18:33] least Ken where we're able to see what's going through his
[1:18:35] head without any dialogue to confirm it.
[1:18:37] Yeah. The key thing for me is I think
[1:18:40] how the look of the film slowly changes.
[1:18:42] Like I said in the opening scenes, it's it seems very
[1:18:45] bleak. There's a real coordinates to it
[1:18:46] and you do kind of understand why Rey isn't impressed by any
[1:18:50] of it. But I think as it progresses and
[1:18:52] he finds more and more there to enjoy and more of a reason to
[1:18:55] think about still being alive, I think the look of the film does
[1:18:58] slightly soften. And again, this for me is
[1:19:00] evidence of why McDonagh doesn't even word a dialogue in here
[1:19:03] without really thinking about it.
[1:19:04] Because by the time you get the final third, that freezing fog
[1:19:07] that Ken was lying about earlier does actually roll in.
[1:19:11] It is in that scene and all the street lamps are lit, the
[1:19:14] Christmas trees, the Christmas sites have been put on as well.
[1:19:17] So it does again have that fairy tale aspect to it.
[1:19:20] It does have just that slight divorce from reality.
[1:19:23] Look to it, It has a glow to it and that again it comes to all
[1:19:27] the violence that's happening. So just everything while you two
[1:19:30] guys have said really it's just supports the story in
[1:19:32] Mcdonough's vision, so. Well, yeah, it does, yeah.
[1:19:35] It really captures Mcdonough's vision.
[1:19:37] A superb crew on In Bruges production designed by Michael
[1:19:40] Carlin is incredible. Yes, Yuri's apartment is
[1:19:43] something else, but the standouts are the outstanding
[1:19:45] screenplay by McDonagh, Carter Burwell's haunt and music and
[1:19:49] Eigel brilled eye for the pain and beauty in the story.
[1:19:52] Yes. Definitely the end.
[1:19:59] The final act. It's all happening on the
[1:20:01] cobbled streets of Bruges. I'm sure this is the moment that
[1:20:04] you've been waiting for, Matt, your entire life.
[1:20:07] I have the Bleeper on standby. You're going to need it here.
[1:20:11] We'll go. I mean, I'll say this how he
[1:20:14] gets to bruise very quickly, doesn't he?
[1:20:17] Very quickly indeed. He gets to bruise quicker than
[1:20:20] he gets down off the tower. He really doesn't make you
[1:20:25] think. Like, has Ken just been sat
[1:20:27] there in that bar all day just getting pissed waiting for him.
[1:20:30] I mean, I don't blame him. Every beer in this film looks
[1:20:33] amazing. I get really thirsty.
[1:20:36] But watching this? Girl, it does as well.
[1:20:38] Like, doesn't it? Yeah.
[1:20:39] Four in 20 minutes? Yeah, I'm going to bed.
[1:20:41] No chance. No chance.
[1:20:43] So you've had this build up, You know Harry is the threat.
[1:20:45] You know what he wants to do to rear and almost certainly what
[1:20:48] he wants to do to Ken now as well.
[1:20:50] But the whole scene just plays out as absolute farce.
[1:20:54] And the thing a lot of that is because Ken and Harry have known
[1:20:57] each other for so long, they've just got these lingering
[1:21:00] resentments towards each other. So when Harry says, excuse me,
[1:21:04] Ken, I have the capacity to change.
[1:21:06] Yeah, you have the capacity to get fucking worse.
[1:21:09] Oh, now we're getting down to it.
[1:21:11] Now we're down to it. He relaxes and he seats it's.
[1:21:14] Really funny, the whole thing to me, it's like a really bad
[1:21:18] appraisal with your manager at work, you know, You know the
[1:21:21] kind of people like, why didn't you do your paperwork?
[1:21:23] Why hasn't that been filed? Why?
[1:21:26] Where's that gone? It has that whole vibe to it,
[1:21:28] and it's Harry's increasing display for the situation.
[1:21:32] You know, Ken thinks he's explaining it, but the boy is
[1:21:35] suicidal, Harry. He's suicidal.
[1:21:37] You're suicidal. I'm suicidal.
[1:21:40] I'm suicidal. We don't all keep going on about
[1:21:43] it. Really.
[1:21:45] Funny and it's really harsh. But at the same time, McDonald's
[1:21:49] has told you how the film's going to end, and there's no way
[1:21:53] you would guess that these characters are going to kill
[1:21:55] themselves because you think, well, how and why it's so clever
[1:21:58] how he signed posted it, but not in an obvious way at all.
[1:22:01] But Harry just gets funnier and funnier when Ken tells him he
[1:22:05] actually stopped Ray from shooting himself.
[1:22:06] The look on how his face what This just gets fucking worse.
[1:22:13] When you were down the park, let me get this you were down the
[1:22:15] park. Just.
[1:22:19] So fast. Complete disbelief, what these
[1:22:21] two idiots have been doing on this sporty, simple job.
[1:22:25] And it's all brilliantly written, because when Harry
[1:22:28] makes a big deal about how if it had been him that had killed a
[1:22:31] kid, accidentally or otherwise, he'd have killed himself on the
[1:22:34] fucking spot. On the fucking spot, mate.
[1:22:36] Which you think is all bluster. But no, as it turns out, this is
[1:22:39] what's going to happen to Harry at the end.
[1:22:41] It's set the end up absolutely beautifully.
[1:22:44] It's right under your nose and you don't realize for 2nd.
[1:22:47] And I've not even mentioned Ken calling Howie's kids.
[1:22:54] Your quote from the top. It's not my fucking kids going
[1:22:57] over. What's going overboard, mate?
[1:22:58] He's. Really insulted by you.
[1:23:00] He's furious. Do you know what to be favorite
[1:23:03] bit about the whole bit? It's like when he talks about
[1:23:07] the alcoves and they're so much good friends.
[1:23:10] Yeah, he's supposed to you about the alcoves.
[1:23:12] That's what I mean. Yeah, that's.
[1:23:13] History. They've got this history and
[1:23:15] they've got this like and it it stops and it pauses and then
[1:23:18] they're like, right, we've got to get back to this again.
[1:23:20] Yeah. And then he's talking about the
[1:23:21] kids and he he insults them and and it's when.
[1:23:24] Yeah, I fucking got that. Find schools.
[1:23:27] Like, what have they done? Yeah, that line really hits me.
[1:23:31] So what have they done? Yeah, because he knows he's like
[1:23:38] a man of principle. He's like, actually, what about,
[1:23:40] I know what I've done. Yes, I know I am.
[1:23:42] Yes. Right.
[1:23:42] What have they done? Nothing.
[1:23:44] So we'll retract it now, because that doesn't.
[1:23:46] Justify that, yeah. Well, I love the scene when they
[1:23:49] go up to the bell tower, yeah. McDonough establishes location
[1:23:53] impeccably. In one shot, the camera circles
[1:23:56] Chloe and Ray kissing as Ken and Harry Walker.
[1:23:59] Are you, in a way, fantastic? Yeah, wonderful.
[1:24:01] All the pieces come together beautifully the moment when
[1:24:03] Harry and Ken get to the entrance.
[1:24:05] It's been amazingly set up in the first act.
[1:24:08] This guy behind the desk is a total hard on.
[1:24:10] Yeah, he's a peel on the arse. Yeah, and he's in for much more
[1:24:14] than he bargained for with Harry.
[1:24:18] I mean, he is, he is very aggressive pork and Harry in the
[1:24:21] foyer, English man and Ken's reaction's.
[1:24:25] Amazing when? He starts to do that.
[1:24:27] He's like. Yeah, he just walks away.
[1:24:29] He walks off, yeah, but with that little bit of thinking, he
[1:24:33] deserves it. To be fair, he was a Dick to me
[1:24:35] earlier. You get what's coming to you
[1:24:37] here? But.
[1:24:39] When they get to the top, it's just magnificently funny and
[1:24:42] tragic and life affirming and everything in between.
[1:24:45] Ken puts his gun down, he's not fighting anymore, Harry says.
[1:24:49] Don't come over all Gandy on me. But then goes into this
[1:24:58] heartfelt place of real affection for Harry and what
[1:25:01] he's done for him. Really emotional, and Harry
[1:25:03] can't believe it. And he lets out this kind of,
[1:25:05] like, hilarious, exasperated noise.
[1:25:08] When he says I love you unreservedly, he goes, what?
[1:25:15] And because of this outpouring of emotion, Harry is close to
[1:25:18] tears himself, and he can't shoot Ken.
[1:25:20] But because he's going to Bruges on a mission to kill Ken, he's
[1:25:24] got to get his pound of flesh somewhere.
[1:25:25] So out of frustration, he shoots him in the leg, says, like, I'm
[1:25:29] not going to do nothing to you just because you're standing
[1:25:31] about like, rubber fucking Powell.
[1:25:35] Like who? Like rubber fucking power.
[1:25:37] Jesus fucking Nazareth. I heard that.
[1:25:43] I fucking boggled. It was me.
[1:25:46] Nana's favorite performance of Jesus.
[1:25:49] Robert Powell, like Robert Powell's, like the ultimate
[1:25:52] Jesus portrayal. And I was wet myself.
[1:25:56] No one's rubber pedals and rubber.
[1:25:58] Fucking now. Nobody knows who Robert.
[1:25:59] Powell is even. Ken doesn't.
[1:26:04] It's wonderful. And after this he even helps him
[1:26:07] downstairs like a brother. But all that changes when Eric
[1:26:10] comes on the scene. One of these fellas has to take
[1:26:13] the bullet. Ken must have to have a go at
[1:26:16] Harry to prevent him from getting to rear, and as a result
[1:26:18] Harry has to defend himself. It's beautifully constructed, it
[1:26:22] is on cast and finds, McDonough said.
[1:26:23] I wanted to cast completely against Type Go for someone
[1:26:26] who'd bring in intensity and darkness and danger to it.
[1:26:30] He also brought something I hadn't seen in him before, which
[1:26:32] was his brilliant comic time. Yeah, which?
[1:26:35] Yeah, absolutely. So, so good.
[1:26:37] In finds himself he took inspiration from a real favorite
[1:26:40] of ours. We all love this one.
[1:26:42] The Long Good Friday. Oh nice Hoskins.
[1:26:44] Incredible performances. Harold Shand in Find said that
[1:26:48] Shand is this savage gangland madman.
[1:26:50] But he also has a sensitive side.
[1:26:52] He's a family man with a strict moral cord.
[1:26:54] Yeah, he said. You get that.
[1:26:55] The a sense of that world with the Bob Hoskins character where
[1:26:58] he has a girlfriend and he has friends.
[1:27:00] Yeah. And then there's this tough
[1:27:01] business side and you do get that scene.
[1:27:03] And that's why that scene, the inanimate object scene, is very
[1:27:07] important. It's not just good busting the
[1:27:08] hilarious. We need to see him at home.
[1:27:10] Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah.
[1:27:12] To show his layers. Yeah.
[1:27:13] And I think it's appropriate now to introduce our third and final
[1:27:16] Pierre Young question. This one comes from DG Barkles.
[1:27:19] Hello, DJ. Hello, DJ.
[1:27:21] He said. First time I saw this at the
[1:27:22] cinema, I was thoroughly blown away while simultaneously
[1:27:25] laughing my ass off at its ultra blackest of black comic tone.
[1:27:31] He said I was not expecting the introduction of RAF, the legend
[1:27:34] finds at all, but he's come. He was one of the most hilarious
[1:27:37] and perfect that I've ever seen. My question is, are there any
[1:27:40] better or more enjoyable come of yours that you could name?
[1:27:43] PS Keep up the great work you massive legends.
[1:27:45] You brighten up a lot of soul crushing commutes.
[1:27:48] Oh, wow. Nice.
[1:27:49] Our pleasure. Yeah, our pleasure.
[1:27:51] Hopefully it's not a commute to Bruges, yes.
[1:27:53] No, no, Matt, come of yours. What do you like?
[1:27:57] A cameo for me is someone who's an absolute surprise and sure
[1:28:01] something maybe just one same. So I really love Samuel Royal
[1:28:05] Jackson at the end of Out of Sight.
[1:28:06] That's a brilliant one. Nice.
[1:28:09] Yes. Dan Aykroyd always puts a smile
[1:28:11] on my face in Temple of Doom, the guy Sean, Indy and Willie
[1:28:14] onto the plane to. Make this game.
[1:28:16] I thought. You were going to say Casper
[1:28:17] there? Well, don't drum into me #3
[1:28:21] here. And also Harrison Ford and ET.
[1:28:26] He's the voice of the science teacher.
[1:28:27] I like that one as well. That one's good.
[1:28:29] Scorsese does great ones. He's really chilling in Taxi
[1:28:32] Driver. That's right.
[1:28:35] I really liked his cameo in there.
[1:28:36] Killers of the Flower Moon, Bill Murray.
[1:28:39] Zombieland. That's a really funny one.
[1:28:41] Another one that really made me laugh.
[1:28:43] It was Channing Tatum. And this is the End, right?
[1:28:48] Yeah. OK.
[1:28:48] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[1:28:50] That's very strange. It is very, very funny, yeah.
[1:28:54] Yeah, yeah. I kind of take your point, Matt,
[1:28:57] that it's one scene and it's from somebody you wouldn't
[1:28:59] expect. Yeah, yeah.
[1:29:00] It's kind of against type, isn't it?
[1:29:02] It is, yeah. But I suppose the obvious ones.
[1:29:04] Alec Baldwin and Glengarry Glen Ross.
[1:29:06] Oh yeah, yeah. It's great, yeah.
[1:29:07] The leads? Bit of shit.
[1:29:08] Your shit. Brilliant.
[1:29:11] I'm a big fan of one we talked about a few months back on our
[1:29:13] double feature show Gene Hackman in Young Frankenstein.
[1:29:16] Oh yeah. Great.
[1:29:17] Wonderful. Great.
[1:29:18] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:29:20] What is he doing in that film, Billy Crystal in This Is Spinal
[1:29:24] Tap? I'm Is money always a joy?
[1:29:26] Princess Bride. And Princess Bride?
[1:29:28] Yeah, very much. And I've got to throw in the
[1:29:31] Boss, Springsteen and High Fidelity.
[1:29:33] Nice. Goodbye.
[1:29:33] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
[1:29:34] Fantastic. What about you, Westie?
[1:29:36] I'm just trying to figure out what's not already been said and
[1:29:41] Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:29:44] You talk about someone against type.
[1:29:45] He's an absolutely fucking marvel in that That's really
[1:29:48] brilliant and I love Tarantino and Desperado I.
[1:29:51] Thought you were going to see Django and she.
[1:29:54] No, because that's his own film, so he's allowed to be in that.
[1:29:57] But every every single Tarantino performance is a cabrio, let's
[1:30:01] be honest. Yeah, it is.
[1:30:02] He's funny and desperado. For me, scores easy in taxi
[1:30:04] drivers. Probably the ultimate cameo in
[1:30:07] its way of like, who is this guy and how good is he?
[1:30:10] He's brilliant. Yeah, So Wester, you're going to
[1:30:13] wrap us up on this scene you talk?
[1:30:16] About. Ken's fault?
[1:30:18] Yeah, devastating. I wanted to talk about the scene
[1:30:20] because this is the only scene that really puts us off watching
[1:30:23] the film because I always want to see the film, but it's so sad
[1:30:27] and it's so well done and it's so real that I kind of always
[1:30:33] imagined this scene. I have to deal with it mentally
[1:30:36] and then put the film on right? Because once you've seen it is
[1:30:39] right, you've got to prepare yourself for this moment.
[1:30:42] And if I'm ready for that moment, then I can watch
[1:30:44] everything that's come before it and ready for that.
[1:30:47] I mean, I'm not a massive fan of local music, give this and that
[1:30:51] and whatever else, but I think The Dubliners on Raglan Road in
[1:30:54] this sequence is so beautifully played out.
[1:30:56] I. Think it's incredible spine
[1:30:58] tingling on Raglan Road of an autumn day?
[1:31:08] I. Saw her first and the new.
[1:31:14] With McDonagh, it could be something that was really upbeat
[1:31:18] just to counteract the visual, and you listen to almost the
[1:31:21] whole song. It's just all the way through
[1:31:25] and the way that this reflects to what I was talking about with
[1:31:27] the Happy and your work scene, if you had to pay that money and
[1:31:31] got rid of these coins, he wouldn't be able to scatter them
[1:31:33] and he wouldn't be able to clear people and he wouldn't be able
[1:31:35] to jump and this would never have happened.
[1:31:37] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:31:37] So again, one of the perfect mirrors in writing, in hitting
[1:31:42] at home. But to see such a beloved
[1:31:44] character fall, do what he needs to do, realise that that's his
[1:31:48] purpose, and explode on the ground and see bits of them
[1:31:53] lying around. My God.
[1:31:54] Where's my gun? His guns?
[1:31:56] Not there. And go straight into an action
[1:31:57] sequence straight after it. It's a beautifully realized
[1:32:01] piece of cinema that you can watch just by itself without
[1:32:04] knowing before or after what happens or even who this person
[1:32:07] is. Yeah, it's just a beautifully
[1:32:09] realized, just an experience really.
[1:32:11] And I've got to prepare myself. Think I'm going to die now.
[1:32:14] Yeah. Oh God.
[1:32:15] And that line, Yeah, I mean, that could have been on a
[1:32:19] million films that I've seen, but it's never really hit home
[1:32:22] like it did on this one. Yeah, and it's Farrell's
[1:32:24] performance. He's absolutely gutted.
[1:32:27] He's heartbroken because Ken was potentially his salvation.
[1:32:30] Yeah, he was absolutely. And Ken's done this to save him,
[1:32:33] and there's just them close-ups of just Harry's here.
[1:32:36] He's absolutely flared apart, yeah, and all he wants to do is
[1:32:39] tell him he's Harry's here, Get out there.
[1:32:41] He still wants to save him. The life that drains out of his
[1:32:43] face. Yeah, it's just.
[1:32:44] Also. Poor.
[1:32:46] There's two things that stand out for me here.
[1:32:49] First is it tells you so much about Ken that he thoughts the
[1:32:52] coins over to get people out the way.
[1:32:53] Yeah, he doesn't have to do that, he.
[1:32:54] Doesn't want to hurt anybody. He doesn't.
[1:32:56] No, he doesn't. Doesn't have to do that as well.
[1:32:57] And the other thing is that what can tell by what he's gone to
[1:33:01] see and bruise prior to this, that he's probably Catholics,
[1:33:04] he's probably quite religious. And in Catholicism, if you kill
[1:33:08] yourself, that's a mortal sin. So he will know that.
[1:33:11] So he will know in Catholicism this is going to send him to
[1:33:14] hell. So it's like, is he doing that
[1:33:16] because he thinks that's why I deserve to go up?
[1:33:17] Because I've killed people. So that's fine.
[1:33:19] Yeah. Or is he doing, Hopefully the
[1:33:22] fact that I'm doing this to save Ray, that will be my penance
[1:33:25] that will Get Me Out of it and, you know, send me to maybe just
[1:33:27] purgatory, but not to hell. I think it's really interesting
[1:33:31] thing for this character to do. Or at least it's worth to see.
[1:33:35] To save Ray, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think the other
[1:33:37] thing I got from as well is that is this isn't the full amount of
[1:33:40] money you need to get there. He's not paying these full
[1:33:43] penance. No, he's $0.10 short.
[1:33:45] Yeah. And what he has to do is save
[1:33:46] Ray to get his $0.10 back. Yeah.
[1:33:48] So he's he's spilling what he has and paying the rest with his
[1:33:51] life. Yeah.
[1:33:52] Yeah, great. So heartbreaking to see Ken go
[1:33:55] the way he does, but he's a complete peace with himself
[1:33:58] rounding off an incredible performance from Gleason.
[1:34:01] Yeah, Unbelievable. In the final sequence, Harry
[1:34:06] clocks Ray, who makes a run for it, and we're picking up the
[1:34:09] scene in the hotel. I love the scene, this
[1:34:11] confrontation in the hotel for a lot of reasons, but part of it
[1:34:14] for me is how important Marie has become in the film because
[1:34:18] she is the symbol of hope and I think forgiveness in particular.
[1:34:23] As we've said throughout the film, Ray kind of latches Andre
[1:34:26] because the fact he killed a kid so he's going to do have them
[1:34:30] for this unborn kid is his kind of tenants 40 stone.
[1:34:33] And it reminds me of Fargo. Like when we talked about that
[1:34:37] episode, we talked about March being pregnant.
[1:34:39] In that I think it was Westie made the point that at no point
[1:34:41] you ever feel they've only written it as a pregnant
[1:34:43] character to put her in peril. To add to the, make it as part
[1:34:47] of the narrative. She's not vulnerable at all.
[1:34:49] Yeah, not vulnerable at all because I think that would be a
[1:34:52] really cheap ploy and I would quite nasty do that.
[1:34:55] And it's the same here. She's there just as this
[1:34:57] alternate good future. If things had gone down a
[1:35:00] different path for it, you know that could have been his future
[1:35:02] to someone like Marie. She's wonderful as well.
[1:35:04] Oh. She's fantastic.
[1:35:06] It's wonderful. She's great.
[1:35:07] Every single scene I think she's called up.
[1:35:08] I really love this performance. Thinks she's really.
[1:35:11] Nails it. Yeah, absolutely nails it
[1:35:12] because. She just completely cuts through
[1:35:14] the bullshit. If these two guys like race at
[1:35:16] the top the stairs with his gun, how he's at the bottom with his
[1:35:19] and the way she just plonks herself in the middle of the
[1:35:22] stairs. I was such defined in for a very
[1:35:25] sweary film. She gets one of the best ones
[1:35:27] where she was This is my hotel so you can fuck off.
[1:35:32] It's brilliant what she does. I think she brings in focus all
[1:35:35] these themes of honour and weird messed up principles.
[1:35:38] Because Harry at one point testra, well, I'm not going to
[1:35:41] shoot you because I'm a nice person And yeah, I I don't
[1:35:44] believe for a second he he would shoot it but.
[1:35:46] There's no way he would, yeah. No way.
[1:35:47] No way he would. And he would never hold a
[1:35:49] hostage with the kid there or any of that.
[1:35:51] No, no, he would. Having said that, that doesn't
[1:35:54] make him nice. That just makes him normal.
[1:35:56] Like, you know what I mean? Like, I think the best level of
[1:35:59] humanity should be, I wouldn't hurt a pregnant woman.
[1:36:02] I don't think you need plaudits for that.
[1:36:05] So it really brings that in focus and you get that really
[1:36:09] like fascicle level to this. Again, if these guys are just
[1:36:12] Dicks like underneath it all, like when Harry wants
[1:36:16] clarification of where the canal is and he's like, will you go,
[1:36:19] Right. It's a big fucking canal.
[1:36:21] And it's Harry's response. He goes, all right, Jesus,
[1:36:24] Ronnie just got here, haven't I? He's so touchy about it, but,
[1:36:28] like, but you're trying to kill him, so I think he's entitled to
[1:36:30] be a bit annoyed, aren't you? Yeah.
[1:36:32] So yeah, I love the scene. It just sums up a lot of the
[1:36:35] themes. But it's really funny.
[1:36:36] The same language. I mean, that's just, in version
[1:36:38] a nutshell, really, isn't it? It is, yes.
[1:36:40] With that whole sequence, it's just the way that it plays out
[1:36:43] between they've got the shootout rules and they're laying it
[1:36:46] down. But it's principle again.
[1:36:48] The whole film is about principle.
[1:36:50] And what is principle and what do you stand by and what's the
[1:36:53] point of being alive and what are you doing to make a
[1:36:56] difference? I think that's what this whole
[1:36:57] film is trying to say. Yeah, how he literally dies by
[1:37:00] his principles. Absolutely.
[1:37:02] Bizarrely enough, this film like, really reassures me about
[1:37:05] being a better person because I know what not to do.
[1:37:09] And it's really strangely done in that way by McDonough.
[1:37:11] I think it's absolutely fantastic.
[1:37:14] I don't want to come back and find you hiding in a fucking
[1:37:16] cupboard. That's brilliant.
[1:37:21] I don't know that. Then come back, find your
[1:37:22] fucking cupboard. Because you know that he might
[1:37:25] do that. And that's what's funny, the
[1:37:26] audience, because, like, yeah, he actually might do that, but
[1:37:28] now he's got to stick to his friends.
[1:37:30] He said, shit, I can't do that. Yeah.
[1:37:32] And I've got to swim across the canal and I'm going to get away.
[1:37:34] Harry knows that he's not going to.
[1:37:36] And he jumps out and it's kind of like the worst opening to any
[1:37:39] Bond field ever. Yeah, yeah, the door.
[1:37:42] Then there's a boat coming along, jumps, lands it.
[1:37:45] It's kind of raised penance as well.
[1:37:47] He sits up and he should hide, but he doesn't feel.
[1:37:49] He should hide. He feels he should die.
[1:37:51] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:37:51] And he just sits up straight and goes, no, it's too far away.
[1:37:54] If that hits me, then that's what's meant to happen.
[1:37:56] Yeah. He actually feel like this
[1:37:58] character needs to do this. He needs that, that feeling of
[1:38:01] just feeling like it's not in my hands anymore and it's just
[1:38:05] Harry's Glee on his face when he hits him, yeah.
[1:38:09] Got it. Still got it.
[1:38:10] Yeah. Yeah, I can.
[1:38:10] Still do it? Yeah, that was miles away.
[1:38:12] That's good. I'll catch up with that.
[1:38:14] That whole sequence where it should be, this whole big
[1:38:17] actions shoot out and it isn't. Again, it's really emotional.
[1:38:21] It's really down to earth. It really makes sense and it
[1:38:24] really just like makes you stop and think and ground you.
[1:38:27] I think it's just incredible where to add the film.
[1:38:29] Yeah, and for the scene, Colin Fraud stunt double was a guy
[1:38:32] called James Embry and he said that in this scene there
[1:38:35] originally wasn't going to be a board for it to jump onto, he
[1:38:37] was just going to plummet into the water.
[1:38:39] But after seeing how shallow that water actually is, which is
[1:38:43] surprising because he think would be deep, McDonough
[1:38:45] introduced that he of the passing board instead.
[1:38:47] And they said actually at the time there were big crowds all
[1:38:50] around the place that gather to watch this scene unfold.
[1:38:53] They're probably all exclaiming the film and Irish fellas and go
[1:38:56] run. Yeah, Farrell did the interior
[1:39:00] shots and cut outside, which is where Embry makes his play.
[1:39:03] Well, I'm going to round things off by talking about the the
[1:39:07] notion of Bruges purgatory being fully realized in these final
[1:39:11] moments. Much like the imagery in the
[1:39:13] Bosch paint and this movie said, that Ray stumbles upon is his
[1:39:17] judgment. The costumes are the same or
[1:39:20] very similar to the painting. You've got Jimmy dressed as the
[1:39:22] schoolboy. That's rays reckoning.
[1:39:24] Yeah, it's uniquely complex, this film.
[1:39:27] In this moment, Harry shoots himself.
[1:39:29] As for taught by himself earlier, if he killed a child,
[1:39:32] he doesn't realize that Jimmy is a little person and what's
[1:39:35] beautiful is that rare. Even after being pumped full of
[1:39:37] lead by Harry still tries to dissuade him from killing
[1:39:40] themselves. Yeah yeah, the beauty of human
[1:39:42] compassion in the face of ultimate adversity.
[1:39:45] And in the end, Bruges is not only kin and Rea's last
[1:39:49] judgement, it's Harry's last judgement as well.
[1:39:51] Yeah, whoever thinks this is a beautiful city wants to have a
[1:39:54] word with themselves. It's a trained killer.
[1:39:57] Got to stick to your principles. Yeah, so, McDonough said.
[1:40:00] I'm interested in the strange, skewed attitudes of violent men.
[1:40:04] You don't cause the death of an innocent.
[1:40:06] You can't overcome it if you do. That was Harry's code.
[1:40:10] The film's characters are immoral, and that's a line you
[1:40:13] don't cross. Yeah, they've got a code of
[1:40:16] ethics, haven't they? Yeah, everything's a principle,
[1:40:18] yeah. Everything's code.
[1:40:19] Everything's a principle, yeah. And finally, what I think is, is
[1:40:22] quite beautiful is the final voice over from Maria.
[1:40:25] The dialogue right at the end is I really hoped I wouldn't die.
[1:40:29] I really hoped I wouldn't die. Yeah.
[1:40:31] Rey is capable of change and Kane hasn't died in vain.
[1:40:35] It's a very subtle arc for Rey, but it's a seismic revelation,
[1:40:39] which is just whispered very much in keeping with the way
[1:40:42] Macdonough has balanced everything throughout the film.
[1:40:44] Yeah, it's so complex. It's incredible.
[1:40:47] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:40:48] It's wonderful. So extreme bloodshed in the
[1:40:50] chaotic final reel of Imbrugge combined with heartbreak and
[1:40:54] beauty, all the hallmarks of a modern comedy classic.
[1:40:58] Absolutely. Reception and awards.
[1:41:05] In Bruges premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and
[1:41:07] Sneaked Out Unlimited release a month later in the US.
[1:41:11] Despite the star in the lead, it returned a very conservative
[1:41:13] 34.5 million from a $15 million budget.
[1:41:17] In contrast to its lukewarm box office receipts, it was
[1:41:20] overwhelmingly praised by critics, Rolling Stone said in
[1:41:24] Bruges about wounds inflicted on the human heart.
[1:41:28] The actors are spectacular, and Mcdonough's gift for language
[1:41:31] makes this film uniquely tasty. No, nice.
[1:41:34] Yes, a particularly positive review from the Minneapolis Star
[1:41:38] Tribune exclaimed. If you could hoist a film on
[1:41:41] your shoulders and parade it through the theatre for
[1:41:43] adulation and Hoorays in Bruges would be the 10.
[1:41:47] Wonderful. It's nice.
[1:41:49] That's what you want to hear. Like if you're McDonough and
[1:41:52] you've used the language you've used in this film, to hear
[1:41:55] people say that, that must be amazing.
[1:41:57] And the big man, Roger Ebert? What did he give it out of four
[1:42:00] fellas? Three.
[1:42:01] I'll go 4I reckon he loved it. Oh, Matt on the money.
[1:42:05] Four out of four, he said. This film debut by Martin
[1:42:08] McDonagh is an endlessly surprising, very dark, human
[1:42:11] comedy with a plot that cannot be foreseen but only relished.
[1:42:15] Yes. Nailed it.
[1:42:17] Nailed it for once, yeah. For once well done, watch more
[1:42:20] like that, please. And now, 15 years later, In
[1:42:23] Bruges has 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and an IMDb score of
[1:42:27] 7.9 out of 10. Pretty good going.
[1:42:30] Not surprised at all. Not at all.
[1:42:32] And with that kind of positive language being bandied about,
[1:42:34] it's unsurprising that it got recognized at award season.
[1:42:37] It was nominated in four categories of the Baftas, with
[1:42:40] McDonough picking up the best Screenplay award.
[1:42:43] Nice. Three noms at the Golden Globes
[1:42:46] with Colin Farrell picking up Best Actor.
[1:42:47] Yeah, yeah. And it was nominated at the
[1:42:50] Oscars for Best Screenplay. Alas, it didn't win.
[1:42:52] It lost to Milk. Unsurprising.
[1:42:54] Yeah, OK, considering the Academy.
[1:42:56] Come on, Matt. Yeah, the language is going to
[1:42:58] put a fair few of the older folders off, I would have
[1:43:01] thought. Further awards glory would
[1:43:03] follow Mcdonough's later films. The critical responses remained
[1:43:06] the same, and the grown cult status of Imbruges has brought
[1:43:09] an art and fan base to Mcdonough's work.
[1:43:11] Yeah, pretty good going for your feature debut.
[1:43:13] Absolutely, yeah. All the right movies ranking.
[1:43:21] And now for our last judgement, the much loved ATRM ranking.
[1:43:25] Matt, would you like to summarize and rate Imbruges out
[1:43:27] of 10, please? Yes, I'd love to because the
[1:43:30] benefit of this film being a very snappy 100 minutes or so,
[1:43:34] like, I really feel we've covered everything.
[1:43:36] We've not missed anything out. So in a lot of ways I'm just
[1:43:39] going to repeat myself. I think the fact that this is a
[1:43:41] debut is extraordinary. Those three main performances
[1:43:45] are pitch perfect, and what really stands out is I think
[1:43:48] people think of in Bruges and the thing of the big laughs and
[1:43:50] the thing of the swearing and the thing of the language, which
[1:43:53] is totally understandable, but that's just the surface stuff,
[1:43:57] and what keeps bringing me back is how clever it is.
[1:43:59] Underneath all of that, there's this real melancholy, there's
[1:44:03] this real tragic undercurrents rather than and it's a really
[1:44:06] interesting exploration of morality and ethics.
[1:44:10] And what does it mean to have a court that you profess to live
[1:44:13] by and can you live by in the most extremist circumstances,
[1:44:17] which is what this film is for these characters?
[1:44:19] And the last thing I want to see is that whenever we do an
[1:44:21] episode, I'm always slightly wary of how many times I'll
[1:44:25] watch the film beforehand. Because if I watch it too many
[1:44:28] times I'll get a little bit bored of it and I think I don't
[1:44:31] want to talk about it now. I've watched it too many times.
[1:44:33] I've not thought about anything else but this.
[1:44:36] I've watched it four times in the last couple of weeks and I'd
[1:44:38] happily watch it again tonight. You know, I don't think I'll
[1:44:41] ever tire if this it is a wonderful alternative Christmas
[1:44:45] watch. It's one that has catapulted its
[1:44:47] way right up into my list of personal favourites.
[1:44:50] I simply can't give it anything other than the full whack, the
[1:44:52] big old 10. Oh, a Christmas 10 Christmas.
[1:44:57] What about you, Wester? You're a big Christmas guy.
[1:45:00] Massive fun at Christmas. I love all that shit.
[1:45:05] It's one of them films I'll always come back to, One of them
[1:45:07] films I'll always recommend. One of them Films that
[1:45:09] constantly surprises us is how well written it was, how well
[1:45:12] directed it is, how well acted it is, how much it's given
[1:45:16] everyone in the cast. The room to shine.
[1:45:19] Farrell wouldn't be where he is now if it wasn't for this.
[1:45:22] Agreed. And Mcdonough's career has just
[1:45:24] gone from shining light to shining light.
[1:45:27] Got no ears and graces about what I'm going to say.
[1:45:30] And it's a 10. Fantastic.
[1:45:33] Perfect scores so far. For me, this is an almost
[1:45:36] perfect film. I'm on board with a comedy, the
[1:45:39] nuanced characters, the dialogue and acting at first rate,
[1:45:43] naturally. I'm so pleased that there is
[1:45:45] someone working in the industry like Martin McDonagh, a real
[1:45:48] breath of fresh air, making idiosyncratic films full of
[1:45:51] heart and humour and nuance. We've talked at length about the
[1:45:55] film, how much we love it. It's technically perfect.
[1:45:58] Yeah. I wasn't going to give it full
[1:46:02] marks because I measured it up against the other McDonough
[1:46:05] films that I love. And for me, this I think I
[1:46:08] prefer banshees. Just that shade.
[1:46:11] Just that shade. My niece's first goal.
[1:46:15] However, I haven't been able to get it out of my head since I've
[1:46:18] I've written this summary and I've watched it again since it's
[1:46:24] following me around. It's haunting me.
[1:46:26] It's an amazing film. So it is 10 out of.
[1:46:28] Yes. Unbelievable.
[1:46:31] Yes, absolutely there is. 1/4 score there is.
[1:46:33] Who cares? That comes from our ever grown
[1:46:39] followers on X, formerly Twitter.
[1:46:41] We often get a lively response and in Bruges was no exception.
[1:46:44] Before I reveal the score, I've picked out some of the best
[1:46:48] comments. Well, the ones that I want to
[1:46:50] read out, not necessarily best. And here they are from Robert.
[1:46:56] I had Robert Miniucci, he said great actors, great story, great
[1:47:00] piece. Ralph F turns it up to 11.
[1:47:03] Yes, he does. True.
[1:47:04] Brilliant. Next.
[1:47:05] Next is Mark Pearson at The Chef Insider.
[1:47:10] He said 9 would be higher but for the anti spurs joke that
[1:47:15] gets a point deducted. I'm feeling your pain Mark.
[1:47:17] I'm right there with you. Don't know what that means?
[1:47:19] Move on. Luke If you actually deducted a
[1:47:22] mark from your score for that, I'd have been.
[1:47:25] Doing another episode of it's. Going overboard, mate.
[1:47:31] Deduct a point for Spurs, and on the negative side of things,
[1:47:36] wine ass at Totter, Willis said. Shit and overrated.
[1:47:41] It doesn't matter. Leave it.
[1:47:44] But rounded things are very smartly, is RFA at under score,
[1:47:48] Royal FA, under score. And they said, I mean no
[1:47:51] disrespect, but in Bruges is a cult movie.
[1:47:55] Yeah, it's a cult now. And it's always been a cult.
[1:47:58] And the only thing that's going to change it is that it's going
[1:48:01] to become an even bigger cult. Yeah, very smart.
[1:48:03] Very. I.
[1:48:04] Love it. Very, very.
[1:48:05] Good. I know.
[1:48:07] Good. I'm so annoyed yourself.
[1:48:09] So out of 10, what do you think improves average out of 10 on X
[1:48:12] formally? Hope it would be full marks, but
[1:48:14] I'm feeling it's going to be like 8 or 9, maybe an 8.5.
[1:48:19] Go 9.5 maybe just missed out. Split the difference.
[1:48:24] It ended up with a solid 9. Out of 10, OK.
[1:48:26] Fair enough, fish. I think so.
[1:48:28] Doing well for itself, yeah. I wouldn't say it's got mass,
[1:48:31] mass appeal, so I can understand the detractors.
[1:48:34] Considering what it's about and how small it is, yes.
[1:48:37] Fair enough. And I Yeah.
[1:48:38] Yeah, it is fair enough. A lot of people are just, you
[1:48:40] know, don't really appreciate really good farms.
[1:48:42] They don't understand. They don't they.
[1:48:44] Don't get it though. It's not about you.
[1:48:46] No. Which means that overall,
[1:48:48] Imbruge scored 39 out of 40 hell of a score.
[1:48:52] Yeah, that is impressive. Messing with it's.
[1:48:54] Really impressive, Yeah. It's worth it though, yeah.
[1:48:56] It's totally worth it 'cause it is.
[1:48:58] You can see where In Brugge fares, alongside all the other
[1:49:01] films that we've talked about on our classic podcast.
[1:49:03] Go to alltherightmovies.com/leaderboard.
[1:49:06] Join us next time. In all the right movies, you'll
[1:49:08] be hearing the music and the voices of John Westie and Matt
[1:49:12] as they go behind enemy lines on Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards.
[1:49:16] Looking forward to that one fellas.
[1:49:18] Yeah, a glass of milk right here.
[1:49:20] Yeah, don't forget the. Cream.
[1:49:22] Wait for the cream. Fantastic.
[1:49:26] Yeah. In Bruges inglorious.
[1:49:29] Ah, lovely. Very nice.
[1:49:31] There it. Is Germany.
[1:49:34] Inconsistent history. Fantastic.
[1:49:43] For our Directors Chair, Patreon supporters, we have a seasonal
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[1:51:46] Yes. Always.
[1:51:47] Every day. We are on YouTube as well.
[1:51:49] Our videos are wonderful and include the four strong atrm
[1:51:53] team. They go up all the time, so
[1:51:54] check them out if you haven't already.
[1:51:56] It also massively helps us out if you could subscribe to our
[1:51:59] channel and like our vids youtube.com/all the right
[1:52:02] movies, yes. Everything positive helps guys,
[1:52:05] you know, Yes. It does very much.
[1:52:07] Anything you can do is massively, massively appreciated
[1:52:09] by all of us. Thank you for listening.
[1:52:11] Thank you for everything. It's really question.
[1:52:13] Appreciate. Thank you for the comments.
[1:52:15] Yeah. Some of the, I mean, some of the
[1:52:16] questions are better than what we're coming up with.
[1:52:19] Yeah, it's a real, it's a real treat.
[1:52:21] It's a real treat to get involved and hear everyone's
[1:52:24] sight on things. It really is great.
[1:52:26] Thank you. And if you love what we do on
[1:52:28] the podcast and why wouldn't you please give us 60 seconds of
[1:52:31] your time and give us a rating on Apple Podcast and Spotify?
[1:52:35] What would you say, fellas? 5 Stars should just about do it.
[1:52:37] I. Would imagine I.
[1:52:38] Think so? Yes.
[1:52:39] Why don't bother if it's less what?
[1:52:41] What's the effort worth if it's not?
[1:52:43] Effortless 5 dollars Click Done. Beautiful.
[1:52:47] And our website the ATRM Hope is all the right movies.com.
[1:52:50] Lots to enjoy over the festive period and that is a wrap on in
[1:52:54] Bruges. Thank you everybody for
[1:52:56] listening to us over 2023 and before and coming up in 2024,
[1:53:01] we'll have loads more coming for you.
[1:53:03] Absolutely. Well, yeah.
[1:53:04] Thank you so much guys. Makes everything really, really
[1:53:07] worthwhile and we love doing this.
[1:53:08] We just really love doing this. So thank you for listening.
[1:53:11] Thank you for being here. We really appreciate it.
[1:53:13] Yeah, we do. Thank you very much.
[1:53:15] And we're now off to hide out over the Christmas period.
[1:53:19] Hopefully a place where it isn't all just fucking chocolates.
[1:53:21] Nah, alcoves, nooks and crannies.
[1:53:24] Yeah. Compliments of the season, Thank
[1:53:26] you for listening. We'll be back in 2024.
[1:53:28] Yes. Thank you guys.
[1:53:29] Yeah. Thanks guys, have a.
[1:53:30] Good one. Thanks guys.
[1:53:31] Have a new year. It's an inanimate fucking.
[1:53:55] Object. You're an inanimate fucking
[1:53:57] object.

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