Seven Psychopaths

M

MikeFunktastic

Active member
Who's excited to see this?!

I've been following Martin McDonagh's career for years, and he just gets better and better. This guy has an insane talent for making sense of the nonsensical and can blow the most mundane situations into life-and-death stakes... it's absolutely incredible.

I also saw Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell perform live in "A Behanding in Spokane". It was one of the most hilarious plays I've ever watched. Never did I feel so bad about all the things I laughed about in that play, but McDonagh's writings and Walken's deliveries were impeccable.
 
Nice! Martin McDonagh isn't the only talent in his family, either. His brother John Michael also directed "The Guard" starring Brian Gleeson and Don Cheadle. The family must have some kind of mutated black comedy DNA in their genes, LOL. Have you read any of Martin McDonagh's plays at all?
 
The Guard is one of the few films to jump straight into my top 10 and cemented Brendan Gleeson as one of my favourite actors. In Bruges was likewise a brilliant low key film that I've watched several times and made Colin Farrell an actor I can watch now.

I saw the trailer for Seven Psychopaths during the previews for The Hobbit (it was the best part of that trip to the cinema), one of the most exciting trailers I've ever seen. That should have been the giveaway. Just watched Seven Psychopaths and it was a major let down. It kept me watching to the end but an almost constant sense of disappointment rode with me throughout. I would have rather seen the film promised in the trailer (or any of the proposed films his characters suggest). The cast was fantastic and their performances were impeccable, it looked great, the dialogue had its moments. But it was simply awful writing beyond that, using the lame device of being a film purporting to be the writing of the film. And this was the cancer gnawing at the heart of a film that could have been great.

If it had actually been a comic gangster film about guys that kidnap a gangster's beloved pet (as advertised) it would have easily lived up to his previous work. If it didn't keep pulling you out with clumsy self-referential passages. If it wasn't so committed to subverting your every expectation making it obvious that every clumsy set up would turn 180 degrees at every turn...this was my most anticapted movie of the year so far. :(

Still worth a look just for Christopher Walken and I'll still look forward to his next film. Just don't expect it to measure up to any of his previous work.
 
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