Seven Psychopaths (2012) Christopher Walken, Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell Movie Review

Seven Psychopaths (2012)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Colin Farrell in Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Many a Scene

Struggling screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) finds himself involved in the Los Angeles crime scene thanks to his friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) who gives him a few ideas for his next story about seven psychopaths. Billy works with Hans (Christopher Walken) who has this scam going where they steal dogs from women and then a few days later return them as if they had discovered them wandering lost. The trouble is that Billy kidnaps a Shih Tzu which belongs to gangster Charlie and Charlie is not at all happy.

The art of movie making is dead but the art of delivering a scene is alive and kicking and if you need proof just watch "Seven Psychopaths". Here is a blacker than black comedy which delivers one beautifully blood filled scene after another which you can't but help pay attention to due to its blood spurting, shocking nature. But this is such a disjointed movie that rather than coming across like a movie driven by narrative it appears to be more a movie of scene ideas all of which have some sort of dark, black, perverse ending.

But maybe I am just old school because whilst taken scene by scene "Seven Psychopaths" entertains as a whole it doesn't and it just needs to tie together much more than it does. But as I said I must be old school and so in the end "Seven Psychopaths" a movie of actors deliver full on caricatures rather than characters and they are entertaining in an extreme way be it Sam Rockwell as Billy or Colin Farrell as Marty who has this comedic style which is surprisingly effective as it has this confused aspect.

What this all boils down to is that "Seven Psychopaths" didn't work for me as a complete package. But as a series of ideas and set pieces it is entertaining with a deeply dark side, darker than you will come across in many a comedy.


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