Directed by:
Martin McDonaghScreenplay:
Martin McDonaghCinematography:
Ben DavisComposer:
Carter BurwellCast:
Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Ольга Куриленко, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Gabourey Sidibe, Kevin Corrigan, Željko Ivanek (more)VOD (5)
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A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster’s beloved dog. Written and Directed by Oscar®-winner Martin McDonagh, the comedy Seven Psychopaths follows a struggling screenwriter (Colin Farrell) who inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends (Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell) kidnap a gangster’s (Woody Harrelson) beloved Shih Tzu. (Momentum Pictures)
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I enjoyed this immensely. This mosaic of stories all linked by the theme of screenwriting and... erm, murders, has all the ingredients necessary. Every psychopath has something special about them and you’ll love absolutely all of them. The stories layer up, link together and all the time you have no idea what will happen over the next ten minutes. Sam Rockwell acts his heart out, Christopher Walken is simply awesome and Colin Farrell is pleasantly passive as the possible incarnation of the director. To shake his writer’s block, Martin McDonagh has written a story about writer’s block and he was even allowed to retain the terrible title. The dream sequences (even though they usually appear in movies for faggots) are more than just well-filmed. Otherwise, I bet that nobody is able to “retell" this movie, you simply have to see it. Shake.
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Somehow I naively thought this would be a chillout movie. What I didn’t expect was that the originality would trump any consistency of the movie, and as a result, I had no idea what to think of it at all. Seven Psychopaths is a weird movie. It’s full of great ideas, but it is hard to get into the story. Colin Farrell is the only relatively normal character in the world of Seven Psychopaths, and it felt as if he was somehow invisible in his role. It’s an irony that a man who is recovering from drinking then plays an old Irish alcoholic. I hope that this label won’t stick with him till his death.
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“Psychopaths sell like hotcakes,” Joe Gills said sixty years ago. It’s evident that Hollywood’s affection for psychopaths has only grown since then. Seven Psychopaths is an original postmodern pun (the only film I can think to compare it to is Kitano’s Sonatine) about which probably no one can offer better commentary than Martin McDonagh, who does so through the mouths of his characters. The film’s main value added, the ceaseless self-reflective revealing of the rules according to which films about psychopaths (i.e. a significant part of American cinema) function, raises doubts about how seriously the serious moments should be taken. Whereas In Bruges was gripping as both an existential drama and a brutal black-humour thriller, Seven Psychopaths doesn’t stick around long enough in either genre for the scenes to have a proper emotional effect. The transitions from serious etudes on the topic of “I kill people, but otherwise I’m also human” to gore farce are smooth and the actors play their roles in just the right way that you sympathise with them a little, laugh at them a bit and kind of want to kill them. However, these transitions are constant and sometimes are obviously added in only so that the film doesn’t just go with the flow and come across as ordinary. A drop of normality in this ocean of madness could serve well as evidence that the film’s creator means something seriously and as an emotional point of reference that elevates the film above the level of an evening’s entertainment. However, this is still first-rate entertainment of the with many levels and boasting one of the best (multi)genre screenplays since Inglourious Basterds. 80%
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In Bruges was more magical, more atmospheric and more cohesive, but I have a weak spot of weird meta stuff like this. Brutality, black humour, a psychopath at every turn and constant self reflection through the character of the screenwriter, Marty (an excellent Farrell, compensating for this year’s pointless Total Recall), and his script of Seven Psychopaths. Yeah, the film’s protagonist is writing the script of the film where he’s acting. That says everything. On the one hand, it’s a bit like covering your own ass (anything can happen and everything can be explained). On the other, it’s a chance to unleash the screenwriters and have fun writing and filming something original. Which to a greater extent they did successfully. McDonagh is awesome.
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Martin McDonagh has taken a huge beating with his previous films, and Seven Psychopaths was not all that successful despite its stellar cast and promising subject matter. Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be a bad film, but I still think that it could have been made a little differently than by ripping off the Coens and Tarantino. The film moves along thanks to a great soundtrack, and from time to time we get a really good (mostly black) joke... It's just a shame that I found the main character to be completely unnecessary and the way Colin Farrell played him to be very dull. I'm rounding up three and a half stars for the actors (Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell in particular) and for the whole final part in the desert (including the epilogue), which was really great.__P.S. Most of the scenes I missed in Seven Psychopaths are on the DVD among the scenes that were cut... Well, at least that's something.
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Gallery (86)
Photo © CBS Films / Chuck Zlotnick
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