Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Director: Martin McDonagh

Rotten Tomatoes rating 81%

They Won't Take Any Shih Tzu

Those who have read my exploration of the Alien franchise will know that my previous endeavours have been heavy on detail and full of spoilers. This review will differ in both of these ways. There will one single spoiler in this review but this will be a very tiny one and will not give any plot details.

 Seven Psychopaths is the follow up to Anglo-Irish playwright and director Martin McDonagh’s 2008 hit In Bruges. Like the previous film Seven Psychopaths is a violent dark comedy. It features several completely bizarre scenes and a couple of entertaining deviations from the plot. 

The casting of Seven Psychopaths is sublime. The protagonist is portrayed by In Bruges star Colin Farrell. He plays Martin an alcoholic screenwriter who is supposed to have completed a script for a film called Seven Psychopaths. Unfortunately though he seems to spend most of his time drinking himself into oblivion. Trying to save him from himself is best friend Billy played by the enormously entertaining Sam Rockwell. Billy is a con artist who makes a living kidnapping dogs while kindly Hans (Christopher Walken) returns them for the reward money. The plot is kicked off in earnest when they steal the Shih Tzu of Mafia boss Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson). Interestingly the role of Costello was originally given to Mickey Rourke. However Rourke dropped out, and to mark this there is a headstone in the graveyard scene bearing his name. 

The plot of seven psychopaths is what leads it from one scene to another and not always in the way that you think it will, but what drives the film is the performances. Farrell is utterly brilliant as a man whose life has just taken a massive sequence of wrong turns. Harrelson treads a fine line between compassion for his lost pet and homicidal rage. Rockwell is just compellingly watchable as some one who may not be operating the same wavelength as everyone else but genuinely wants to help his best friend. And Christopher Walken just about steals the show with his quite dignified performance. 

In Bruges was so well regarded and such an alternative hit that it was a hard act to follow. However McDonagh more than pulls it out of the bag with Seven Psychopaths. The film manages to be violent, funny, sentimental, well crafted and entertaining. It may not be to everyone’s taste. There are some graphic and very inventive deaths and language, which is colourful to say the least. Yet unlike films of a lesser quality this is all used to enhance the story rather than compensate for the lack of it.

Some critics have complained that plot lines peater out and the film does not break any ground. They have accused the film of trying too hard and stated that it feels like a bad Tarantino pastiche. Others have praised it as a future cult classic and tipped it for Oscar nods. The more highbrow newspapers put the former view forward, in particular the Guardian, however I tend to feel that they were trying to read something into the film that was never intended to be there in the first place. From viewing Seven Psychopaths I would tend to agree that it has cult classic written all over it but any Oscar nominations will be in the writing and technical categories.

As my final credit to this film I will point out that Harry Dean Stanton is one of the psychopaths. The Robert Ebert Stanton/Walsh rule states that any film that features either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh can not be bad - the exception that proves this rule being of course Wild Wild West. Therefore this must prove that Seven Psychopaths is good!

I'd would definitely recommend seeing it at the cinema while it is still out, and if not then be sure to catch it on rental when the DVD is released.

- Lizzy