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Seven Psychopaths (2012)
Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits. Directed by Martin McDonagh.
Seven Psychopaths is a pretty good idea. Marty (Colin Farrell), a struggling screenwriter, is working on a script but so far only has a title: Seven Psychopaths, which everyone who hears about it agrees is a great title. Marty’s friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is an out-of-work actor who makes money by stealing dogs and then returning them for the lost-and-found rewards. Billy’s partner in this scheme is Hans (Christopher Walken). When Billy and Hans unknowingly steal a dog owned by a mobster (Woody Harrelson), all four characters become involved in a strange, bloody story that may or may not be this movie you’re watching.
If the setup reminds you slightly of Adaptation, you aren’t alone. This film is not quite as self-aware or self-referential as that one, but it’s definitely less distantly related than a third cousin, with Inglourious Basterds as a favorite in-law. It’s a bloody, violent, fun story for the first two acts, when it seems to delight in telling its short, psychopathic stories. But as Marty gets the pieces of his script lined up, he lacks a climax and resolution, if he has any plot at all, and the principal characters become players and/or authors in the movie’s too-long, not-very-engaging wrap-up.
There’s got to be a reason for Billy’s last name being the same as one of cinema’s most quoted characters, and for Marty’s extremely bushy eyebrows, but whether they are part of Marty’s creative process or some kind of homage to the characters’ inspirations is never addressed. If in fact we’re looking at a movie written by Marty as he’s putting it together, that seems not to be the emphasis of the movie: trying to connect dots or follow hypotheses to their acceptances is frustrating and fruitless. The most we are encouraged to do is enjoy the ride, which is good enough for the first two-thirds. Somewhere after that, the film starts to drag even as it gets more violent, and when it finally concludes, all I could think was, “Well. That didn’t suck.”
The performances are surprisingly enjoyable. Harrelson, especially, seems to savor his every line of dialogue, and Walken manages not to remind us of the thousands of caricatures we’ve all seen by now, playing quirky but low-key and probably sweeter than I’ve ever seen from him. One critic I follow said this is Sam Rockwell’s best performance, but boy do I have to disagree with that. I really like Rockwell, and I think he’s usually the most interesting thing on any screen he occupies, but the overacting he does here is flat and uninteresting, lacking anything to lift him off the pages of his comic-like script.
Because Adaptation becomes a victim of its own cleverness (and that is a much better-executed film than Seven Psychopaths), one wonders if a truly rewarding movie can made with more than minimal meta-ness. I have high hopes for Cloud Atlas, which is scheduled for release next weekend, but I wonder if this film’s purpose is really to warn me against that; it certainly doesn’t bode well for anything that aspires to being more meta.
4/10 (IMDb rating)
44/100 (Criticker rating)
Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits. Directed by Martin McDonagh.
Seven Psychopaths is a pretty good idea. Marty (Colin Farrell), a struggling screenwriter, is working on a script but so far only has a title: Seven Psychopaths, which everyone who hears about it agrees is a great title. Marty’s friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is an out-of-work actor who makes money by stealing dogs and then returning them for the lost-and-found rewards. Billy’s partner in this scheme is Hans (Christopher Walken). When Billy and Hans unknowingly steal a dog owned by a mobster (Woody Harrelson), all four characters become involved in a strange, bloody story that may or may not be this movie you’re watching.
If the setup reminds you slightly of Adaptation, you aren’t alone. This film is not quite as self-aware or self-referential as that one, but it’s definitely less distantly related than a third cousin, with Inglourious Basterds as a favorite in-law. It’s a bloody, violent, fun story for the first two acts, when it seems to delight in telling its short, psychopathic stories. But as Marty gets the pieces of his script lined up, he lacks a climax and resolution, if he has any plot at all, and the principal characters become players and/or authors in the movie’s too-long, not-very-engaging wrap-up.
There’s got to be a reason for Billy’s last name being the same as one of cinema’s most quoted characters, and for Marty’s extremely bushy eyebrows, but whether they are part of Marty’s creative process or some kind of homage to the characters’ inspirations is never addressed. If in fact we’re looking at a movie written by Marty as he’s putting it together, that seems not to be the emphasis of the movie: trying to connect dots or follow hypotheses to their acceptances is frustrating and fruitless. The most we are encouraged to do is enjoy the ride, which is good enough for the first two-thirds. Somewhere after that, the film starts to drag even as it gets more violent, and when it finally concludes, all I could think was, “Well. That didn’t suck.”
The performances are surprisingly enjoyable. Harrelson, especially, seems to savor his every line of dialogue, and Walken manages not to remind us of the thousands of caricatures we’ve all seen by now, playing quirky but low-key and probably sweeter than I’ve ever seen from him. One critic I follow said this is Sam Rockwell’s best performance, but boy do I have to disagree with that. I really like Rockwell, and I think he’s usually the most interesting thing on any screen he occupies, but the overacting he does here is flat and uninteresting, lacking anything to lift him off the pages of his comic-like script.
Because Adaptation becomes a victim of its own cleverness (and that is a much better-executed film than Seven Psychopaths), one wonders if a truly rewarding movie can made with more than minimal meta-ness. I have high hopes for Cloud Atlas, which is scheduled for release next weekend, but I wonder if this film’s purpose is really to warn me against that; it certainly doesn’t bode well for anything that aspires to being more meta.
4/10 (IMDb rating)
44/100 (Criticker rating)
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