"You're an Inanimate fucking object!"

This movie isn´t even underrated... it is just widely unknown. Actually it is more or less beloved by everone who ever saw it! :)

This is a perfect movie IMO. Encapsulates everything I want out of cinema. The scene where Ken stops Ray from killing himself while simultaneously attempting to murder him is one of my favorite scenes of all time.

It's an inanimate fucking object! - You're an inanimate fucking object!

One of the most underrated films of the decade

I've never seen a movie with such a mixed reaction. I saw it with my family. I laughed, my mother cried, my father fell asleep and my sister was in chock.

I had no real idea what to expect from this film, but it really surprised the hell out of me. It's one of the best, most striking films I've ever seen.

One touch I really loved from that film is at the very end: when Harry is about to shoot himself for killing what he thinks is a child but is actually a very racist dwarf dressed as an elf, Ray tries to stop him. Harry has spent most of the film trying to kill Ray but it never was personal and Ray got that and accepted it fully. It's very rare to see enemies respecting each other that much.

The ambiguity of Ray's final voice over is similar to the end of Inception, in that wondering whether or not he survived (or if the top fell) is beside the point: he no longer hoped he would die, so it's a happy ending. Throughout the film he has been suicidal due to his guilt. Ken stops him from killing himself, and the film's characters address the irony of doing that when his assignment had been to kill Ray anyway. Harry says that letting him kill himself would have solved all of their problems. Ken, a good(ish) Catholic, disputes this strongly--"it WOULDN'T have solved his [Ray's] problem." If Ray had killed himself, he would automatically have been damned according to Catholic morality. At the end of the film, specifying that he no longer wished to die, was no longer suicidal, implies that he wasn't damned, even if he didn't survive being shot.

Colin Farrell gives one of the most underrated performances of all time

I've always interpreted the characters as Jesus, Humanity, and Satan: Ken is Jesus, guiding Ray (humanity) and ultimately sacrificing himself for the sake of a second chance, or grace. He's also the one most interested in the religious symbolism surrounding the city. (This one is a stretch, but when he goes up into the tower by himself, you can see an old man with a beard and white hair, who could be a representation for God.) Ray is humanity, given that his behaviour is the largest swath of good and bad and his decisions are often amoral - either mistakes, or too complex to really judge as good or bad (shooting the guy in the eye out of self defence because he was sleeping with this guy's girlfriend who actually likes Ray but is also possibly trying to rip him off, etc.). Also, it's clear through the movie that it's him specifically that's being judged. Harry is Satan, given how he is married to legalistic moralism. If you study theology, Satan isn't so much about promoting cartoonoish evil as he is about sticking to an inflexible moral law that demands punishment, and by following that legalism he ends up getting thrown out of God's presence (since God favoured humanity, offering them grace). In this case, Harry follows his moralism so strictly that under his own law he must kill himself.

This video is like a fucking fairytale or something.

Amazing film, and on rewatches it must be one of the tightest scripts ever filmed. Almost every line is either a foreshadowing or referencing something that has already happened, or has a hidden double meaning.

I never realized that the boy's sins mirror Ray's. Holy shit.

In Bruges is also a pastiche...homage...nod of the head to The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter. Absurdist play about two hit met waiting for instructions, slowly find out one has botched a job, the other is there to kill him.

Ray's penultimate line, "cause at least in death or in prison, y'know, I wouldn't be in fuckin' Bruges!" had me in stitches the first time I saw this fantastic film. Very underrated line that sums up the character quite brilliantly imho.

I love this movie

i go to school in Bruges and i get to leave every day.

In Bruges is what every author wants his book to be. The images it creates and the story it tells, is exactly at least how I want my stories to read in the head of the reader. the dialogue, the morality, the mystical, the humanism all combine brilliantly in this film.

I love you for making this. I'm only 17, and watched In Bruges not that long ago, but I think it may have been one of the first real "films" I ever watched, if you know what I mean. I'd always been an avid movie watcher, but I remember this movie coming to an end and feeling something new. This... just being left to wonder. My religious upbringing and personal morality seemed to be struggling, together and despite each other, to make sense of what had happened, to maybe assign labels of "right" and "wrong" to the actions of the characters. The failure to do so, the strange loops I was lost in, the paradoxes I encountered, but, at the time, couldn't yet articulate... man. The movie is a slow burn, and you just made me want to watch it again.

I'd love to see an analysis of Seven Psychopaths

'In Bruges' is still McDonagh's best film to date.

The music in this film is outstanding.

One of the best movies of the last decade.

6:08 "they're filming midgets!" *scampers off. 🤣🤣🤣

About judgement, there's a line from when Ken and Ray first arrive, Ray describes Bruges as a "shithole" but Ken tells him to "reserve judgement". This could be considered a pretty stark contrast to Harry with his rigid morality. But moving back to the religious symbology, when Ken and Ray first arrive to their hotel they're told they have one room booked instead of two, when Ray complains the owner of the hotel (a pregnant woman who says she co-owns to hotel with her husband who is never shown in on screen) tells him everywhere in town is booked up due to the holiday travel (Christmas). At one point in the film Harry says he wants Ray "crucified". Okay so I'm just going to get on with it, Ray represents mankind, Ken represents Jesus, Harry can represent God and Satan in equal parts (but essentially some kind of higher authority). Ray represents mankind in all of its messiness and moral ambiguity, Ken represents Jesus in his self sacrifice in order for Ray to live in the hopes he will change for the better. Thank you for listening.

Great video essay of one of my favourite films. I will note, however, that the repetition of phrases used by McDonagh is just something us Irish people do in everyday conversation. The "Vietnamese" exchange is the most obvious example of this - Ray repeats "The Vietnamese!" as if that will somehow clue the Canadian man into what he missed the first time around. It's just an odd Irish mannerism, and I don't think there's much more to it than that.

"In Bruges" exists somewhere between Tarantino and Guy Ritchie.

In love with this video! :D

I've seen In Bruges 5 times & I've seen this video 3 times. Even now, I am still experiencing new things about BOTH of these things. So credit to Martin McDonagh for making an amazing movie, and thank you for this amazing dissection of my favorite film.

This is one of my favorite films of all time... and one of those I can watch often and never get sick of... so glad you made this video as a companion piece to such a brilliant film.

I rarely see such great content produced so consistently. Certainly Patreon worthy.

I was pleasantly surprised to find someone did a video essay analyzing In Bruges. It is one my favorite dark, cerebral comedies and I've watched it multiple times.I don’t think I could put into words, the way in which you have done, the underlying, or perhaps not so underlying, content which puts the film into a category much more suited to it than pure 'dark, cerebral comedy’. I always seem to come away after watching the movie uneasy, however, to note, in a satisfying way. I enjoy watching your film essays (especially the one for In the Mood for Love). Thank you for your great work!

When j decided to watch this movie, I thought it was a dark comedy. It was so much deeper, emotional, and dramatic than I was expecting. It’s such a great movie, totally different than what I was expecting, but no complaints at all from me.

My heart stopped when I saw this in my feed. In Bruges is my all time favorite movie and Bruges is a wonderful city. Thank you.

(spoilers I guess) I think that last line of narration is also extremely noteworthy as well because, for the entirety of the movie up to that point, Ray not only talks openly and contemplates committing suicide for what he's done but also attempts it only to be stopped by Ken. Then, in a turn of events, Ken himself ends up committing suicide off the tower in an attempt to reach Ray first and warn him about Harry. I feel as though, even the movie is centered around Ray, it's actually about Ken. Deep down, he had to have known the outcome of taking Ray to Bruges. At the very least, he had a good gut feeling about it. I think taking Ray sightseeing was not only an attempt to give Ray one more good memory before he died, but also himself. Whether he'd gone through with it or not, he could always look back on the good time he and his friend had spent together there. On the same note, trying to give Ray that good time was a way to fight his own guilt as he was the one who brought Ray into the hitman scene in the first place. Perhaps, in that, he blamed himself for the death of the child hence why he felt putting Ray on that train to give him a second chance at life and choosing not to fight Harry and accepting whatever punishment Harry was going to dish out was a good idea. With Ray gone and Ken taking all the blame, maybe he thought his own death by Harry was a way to give Ray that forgiveness he so desperately needed, bringing it back around to the religious aspect in some ways. Same as letting Ray go on the date with Chloe while he waits for Harry's call. He was predicting the outcome of the trip and keeping Ray happy while he fought with himself over the decision he would inevitably have to make. Obviously he couldn't know exactly how it all could have played out, especially Ray's being forced back to Bruges, but I still think he always blamed himself and, while he could have just as easily got on the train with Ray, he knew Harry would keep looking for them and his choice to accept the punishment in Rays place was the only way it was going to end. The open endedness of the film was an absolute genius move, leaving its interpretation up to the viewer. I think the end bit of dialogue between Harry and Ray as well was great. Harry ended up accidentally killing Jimmy in the same way that Ray killed the child. Not knowing it was Jimmy and thinking it was a child, he was forced to take his own life and make good on the very specific exact words he said to Ken. Not only that, but Ray even attempted to stop him and tell him it wasn't a child even though Harry had just done him in. I think that part in particular also speaks volumes about Ray and maybe even could trace back to the scene in the park where Ken tells him to "save the next one". Any way you put it, this movie is a must watch for anyone who hasn't seen it.

What an amazing and thorough analysis of In Bruges. Absolutely love this film. Keep up the good work. I look forward to every single one of your video.

One of the most Underrated movies and one of the most underrated nerdwriter videos of all time

This movie is one of my favorites of all time, and I loved how you just picked it apart and made me look at it from a different perspective. truly stellar job.

Saw In Bruges for the first time last weekend and absolutely loved it. The thing I liked about it most was that, whilst also hilariously funny, a lot of the jokes worked on many levels in revealing the themes of the film and the morality of the characters. The humour and the morality are so impressively woven together that the film gets funnier as you progress with the characters. A real masterpiece.

Huge respect for appreciating Irish film making ,it's really underrated! If you like In Bruges then you'd really like his brother's film 'Calvary'

Colin Farrell is one of the most underrated actors of his generation. Gets overlooked because of a few flop films. Minority Report, True Detective season 2, In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, Saving Mr Banks, The Lobster etc.

love your work! It's especially impressive how you manage to continue pumping out quality content again and again every week. I don't think I've seen a single video of yours I didn't like except for "The World is Your Playground", but the only reason I don't like it is because it made me cry during my break at work and I had to go back to work with puffy red eyes.

@Nerdwriter1 You make my Wednesdays, literally every video is better than the last! Looking back over your older work; it is incredible how much better you have become as your style has evolved (like any great film maker). Just, for those who haven't watched the films you're analysing, put a spoiler warning as this one was chock full, thankfully I had seen the movie, just a general courtesy nowadays. Thank you again for everything you do!

Saw this movie once on Netflix and it became one of my favorite films of all time. So glad you tackled this...and so brilliantly as usual! Really need to see it again. The language (not just all the fucks) is great, very inspiring as a writer. Should've won the Oscar for screenplay!

Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' would provide loads of material for a great case study.

In Bruges is one of my favorite films. This analysis makes me appreciate it even more. Thanks mate.

In Bruges is one of my favourite film, me and my friend like it so much and have watched it so much that we just quote it to each other as it plays, the dialogue is just so great, expecially the exchange about the bottle.

I almost cried with how beautifully put together this analysis and edit was made. Thank you so much for existing you lovely, lovely soul!

In Bruges is my number one favorite movie. I want to know more movies like this, full of symbolism, dark and hilarious at the sam time.

One of my ALL time favorite films. Absolutely beautiful film of dark humor and a contemplation on mistakes, thoughts of suicide, and whether you can truly follow through with those thoughts without at the end thinking that you want to live. Amazing acting and such a decisive musical score that makes the entire film feel dreamlike

I must say you absolutely nailed this video, your in depth analysis and your flawless editing were a joy to observe, and then you hit us with Raglan Road to lead us out. Phenomenal. Subscribed

This is my absolute favorite movie. Thank you!

This is one of my favourite films ever.

As an actual graduate from film school, I applaud your content. Your pacing and voice is up there, at the top, that I would want to listen to while I was watching a movie. As you know, that's all we do in film school is talk over the movie, because we know how to rewind. Your voice is golden. You have something to say and you have a nice way of saying it. Good job as usual.

One of my favorite movies. The juxtaposition between the trailer and the actual film shows how hard it is to sell a dark comedy.

Better than three billboards, imho

I really love this film, on different levels. Maybe it's because I'm Belgian. Even though the film is strong enough on itself, it's the city that makes it magical. If you ever would go here, I'd be happy to show you around! Wonderful analysis, as always. Thank you for that.

I love your work so much. From the depth of insight you bring forth, to the flow of your words, to the sound of your voice. Love it. Keep up the good work.

You really are great at expressing these subjects in such eye-opening ways. You leave me viewing things in ways I hadn't before and appreciating them a little more than I had before watching your videos. I don't know you're just really insightful and leave me pondering every word with each video you make

btw the tense he talks about is a type of perfect

Bad at maths... Holy shit

Probably my favorite film of all time from my favorite directing/writing due. Appreciate the fact that you look at the scripts to get a feel for the raw message the writer was trying to convey. I feel like all of my favorite films you eventually do a video on, so there's almost no point in even asking but please consider doing a video on Calvary, La Grande Bellezza, The Grey, Ex Machina, Shame, Hunger or Naked. All magnificently written and executed pieces of art that I don't feel have gotten their due recognition and analysis. Expect some pledge money coming through the old Patreon from me.

Ive watched every Nerdwriter1 video, but this one is certainly my favourite. Thanks for the content! Great insight into a great film.

That was really good, bro. The brevity of the execution really worked well with the thematic analysis of the film. My only problem, and it's very small, is your tendency for that last line delivery you've grown accustomed to doing. Looking back on your videos from years ago, it's pretty clear you tightened up your delivery by slowing down your speech and using more accessible terms for the audience. But the slow word by word delivery of your last line was cool at first because you were discovering new ways to make a conclusion and combining it with music. Brilliant! and simple. But now it's starting to grow weary because of the anticipation of it. It's more of a gimmick than a hook, and to be honest with you, you're way better than someone who needs gimmicks. Your work is substantial. Keep evolving, bro. Don't settle just yet. Keep growing.

this is in my top 3 movies.. it's so good

Second time I've watched this,now, today. Such a great job. I remember watching it several years back, and even recently put it on my top ten list of assassin movies; but I don't really remember it being so complex and nuanced. You make me want to go back and watch it again. As a movie guy myself, I'm incredibly jealous of the insight you manage to pull from these films. Keep it up, and I look forward to more from you!

"In Bruges" is a wonderful film, it has it's moments and recommend to my friends.But I have never thought of the art behind the scenes. You did an upload about the film "Children of men" and the artwork in that film. Thank you for pointing out the significance of art that surrounds us. It is history, I heard a preview into the future is a careful study of the past.

HI. Your work is amazing and inspiring. I'll support your work on Patreon when I can!

Such an underrated movie.

Before I watch your videos, I first watch the movies, and then re-watch them. Identifying the points you make in your video essays make them so much more sublime.

Very well done video. I couldn't help but pick up on connection of purgatory and bruges while watching this last week and just wanted to see if anyone else saw the same and out of no where you dropped a new video about it today!

Loving your videos!

The lyrics to On Raglan Road are similarly reflective in their morality: I saw here her once and knew that her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue

Hearing raglin road at the end was a treat, that song always gets me, such a beautiful tune.

Wow. Just wow. so many layers yet to be seen, so much more to learn... I had hoped I wouldn't need this - but movies they just keep giving and giving...

the last time I came this early I became a father

also ex machina is really cool i feel like thats another one to consider discussing

I actually saw this movie after I visited Bruges in the spring of 2015 with my wife. The weather was cool and overcast for the entirety of our stay. In actuality, the constant cloud cover and lack of sunlight suited that city so well. It's definitely one of our favorite places that we visited in Europe.

I came across this movie while nothing else was on tv... thought of it at first as Maybe I should just skip it... then I kept watching.. and kept watching and... I relised. This movie is DEEP. Really deep. IT sucks you in and won't let you out. I love your last sentence. "It doesn't let you leave". That's how I felt the night I watched it... My heart full of pain and a stomach ache from the thought... one mistake could one mis fire and everything can change. This is so true for a lot of things but the weight of it all happens throughout the movie like a anvil slowly falling on their heads.

Amazing film. Much under appreciated

Mance Rayder is a Catholic priest!

Man, I can't believe it's been eight years since I first saw this! What a brilliant film and an equally brilliant analysis. Keep up the good work!

How could I miss such a film?!? thanks for showing it to us and for another inspiring video.

Brendan Gleeson is god, but we all know his best work is Cáca Milis

"A bottle! " SMACK

I watched this movie yesterday, and really liked it. Finding out Nerdwriter did a video on it was a nice surprise. Thanks!

When you analyze films you just keep showing me amazing movies, every time it is an amazing new film I have not watched yet. Thank you so much :D

do Synecdoche, New York

The recognition that Martin Mcdonagh received for three billboards, he should have recieved it for this movie too. I see that many people have not seen this movie. But, I was blessed to have a tv channel in my country that only played arthouse movies. One day I was flicking through the channels and I saw that this movie was playing. I did't know what it was about but decided to stay with it for a while. I was spellbound by the beautifully written and acted characters and heartbreaking story the crushing soundtrack was a cherry on top. From then on I instantly became a Mcdonagh fan. And then three billboards happened.

I completely forgot about this film. It was one of the best films I've ever seen. Thank you for bringing it back into my consciousness.

I’m so glad it’s finally back! Been searching for this one online for ages.

The film Six Shooter is an excellent half hour short by Martin McDonagh, really worth a watch.

0:54 - "Is that the boy from Humans?" *google search* IT IS! HOLY CRAP, GOOD EYE.

I love that you used the music from the movie in this. It helps make the unreal sense of the movie come into your video.

Finally got around to seeing "In Bruges," and what an incredible movie. Entertaining on a surface level because of great characters brilliantly brought to life through keen writing and brilliant acting; thrilling action, and irreverent "non-P.C." humor. But there's an underlying depth and substance to the film that stays with

I'd really like to know the song that played for the Squarespace commercial! lol 'Noher amazing video Evan! Thanks as always!

How many here realize that the top five main characters, Colin Farrell, Brendon Gleeson, Ciaran Hinds, Ralph Fiennes, and Clémence Poésy were all in the Harry Potter series?

One of my favorite movies, and a brilliant analysis. I find myself coming back to watch this every now and again since it really helps me appreciate the movie that much more.

Past few weeks I have coincidentally watched the film a few days before you analyze it. I love this movie, thank you so much for this.