Title: Seven Psychopaths
Released: 2012
Staring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Linda Bright Clay, Amanda Mason Warren
Plot: Marty (Farrell) a writer struggling to finish his screenplay
entitled “Seven Psychopaths”, while receiving inspiration from his friends
Billy (Rockwell) and Hans (Walken) make a living kidnapping dogs in order to
collect the owner’s cash rewards. However when the duo unwittingly steal the
beloved Shih Tzu of gangster Charlie Costello (Harrelson), Marty soon finds himself
along with his friends entangled in a confrontation with the LA criminal
underworld.
Review: Sneaking in at the end of last year, this film has
hardly been on the radar for most movie goers who were no doubt more focused on
the release of the first film in “The Hobbit” trilogy. Still this is still not the most suprising reaction to this films release considering the
last film we saw from director McDonagh was equally overlooked “In Bruges”, which
honestly was not a film I exactly dug, thanks largely to the fact it could
never quite decide what sort of film it wanted to be. Still it would seem that
McDonagh may have learned something from his debut as he returns here with a
film which only improves on what “In Bruges” hinted at before.
A multistring tale which shares more than a few ideas in its
construction with Spike Jonze's “Adaptation” due to both films switching between real life and
fiction, with the two worlds interlinking, the film frequently switches
between the film version of Marty’s screenplay and real life were he makes various
attempts to finish he script. which is far from easy considering he hasn’t even
come up with one of his proposed psychopaths. Slowly over the course of the
film these psychopaths are slowly revealed while the lines between fact and
fiction become even more worryingly blurred.
These stories of the psychopaths and thier legacies make up the majority of the
film as starting with “The Jack of Diamonds Killer” the real life balaclava
clad killer currently running around the city with a passion for killing mid to
high level members of the mob and a gentle introduction of those who are to
follow as we are soon introduced to the first of Marty’s fictional creations “The
Quaker” a highly religious hitman who unsurprisingly dresses as a Quaker, who
is soon joined by the also religious themed Vietnamese Priest on a quest for revenge
against the American platoon who killed his family in the Vietnam war. The most
interesting of these colourful characters though is Tom Wait’s killer of serial
killers after Billy randomly places an advert in the newspaper
CALLING ALL PSYCHOPATHS! Are you MENTAL or DERANGED? Maybe you have been recently hospitalised but are now Okay? Or perhaps the world just doesn't understand you?",
CALLING ALL PSYCHOPATHS! Are you MENTAL or DERANGED? Maybe you have been recently hospitalised but are now Okay? Or perhaps the world just doesn't understand you?",
Sadly McDonagh misses a trick here as rather than a queue of
crazies, we instead get a solitary visit by Wait’s rabbit carrying Zachariah,
who gives us yet another member of the titular seven, as he tells the tale of
how he rescued a girl named Maggie (Warren) from the basement of a serial
killer and how the two of them as a couple went across the country killing some
of the most famous serial killers including more humorously a rabbit obsessed “Zodiac”.
While Waits appearance here is pretty much a brief one, it is still like all of
the psychopaths still none the less memorable, perhaps even more so thanks to
his pennant for constantly carrying around his white rabbit.
Clearly realising that a collection of short stories about
psychopaths would be a hard sell on its own, McDonagh’s attempt to string them
together with the dog snatch plotline does at times lack some of the polish
that he gives to the short stories, especially when it lacks any of the smart
humour that is given to the rest of the film outside of a running joke about a
frequently jamming gun. Still the film is generally at its strongest when it is
left to the antics of the three friends trying to piece together the screenplay
and it’s here that the choice casting really comes into play with Farrell once
again wheeling out his befuddled charm as he lives in a state of constant
frenzied panic, especially as his screenplay spins wildly out of control.
Meanwhile Rockwell continues to be equally enjoyable as the loud and brash
Billy, while our man in focus for this month Walken gives another thoughtful performance
which he seems to give more frequently these days and here it works especially
well, especially when facing down armed gangsters with nothing but an stone
faced glance, as he continues to prove that he has just as much presence on the
screen even when he is not giving one of his more dominating performances,
which he might be more memorable for.
As the main villain Harrelson is truly believable, even if
the role had originally been written for Mickey Rouke, who dropped out thanks
to creative diffrences with McDonagh and was replaced by Harrelson which ultimately
makes for a stronger choice for the role and even more so when it comes to the
frequent mood swings which Charlie is prone to, but then Harrelson has always
done great crazy!
While it is also inevitable whenever violence is being made
to look cool, that comparisons to Tarantino will be drawn but here McDonagh
still manages to give us an original spin to proceedings, thanks largely to how
he has chosen to shoot the film, with the frequent cut always to the cinematic
interpretation of Marty’s script often proving to be the most fun, especially
when Billy gives his idea for an ending, which inturn gives us possibly one of the
most random shootout’s ever put on screen, especially with Marty being shown
trying to write the script in the midst of it, while Walken’s Hans emerges from
a coffin like a vampire. However due to this shooting style it will no doubt confound
the less open minded movie goer’s who would no doubt prefer a more straightforward
approach to the story and essentially only furthering the films status as a
cult movie in the making, while making me seriously reconsider McDonagh’s
reputation as a director, this is one certainly worth hunting down.
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