Review of Seven Psychopaths (2012) by Blake P — 04 Sep 2014

"Seven Psychopaths" aims to have the pulpy, comedic, smooch of "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang", but it ends up resembling a Quentin Tarantino knock-off that feels so 1994. It's meta, but it's possibly too meta. And if being too meta is a bad thing, surely you've done something wrong.

Martin McDonagh is a hugely acclaimed director, his other work, "In Bruges", earning about the same amount of serious raves as this film has recently gotten. But maybe I just don't get it. He is certainly able to write a screenplay that is delighted with itself, ultimately strong in its dialogue, but he gets quite a bit too carried away with writing villains. Villains that, despite all their little quirks and one-liners, are too thoroughly despicable to enjoy even remotely. Seven psychopaths feels like seven too many by the end of the film.

The plot gets a bit too complicated to explain in just a few paragraphs: all I can say is the psychopaths include a murderer who only shoots high ranking mobsters, a husband and wife duo that serial kills serial killers, a thug who is possibly a little too obsessed with his dog, and a man who much prefers a slow revenge to a quick and bloody one.

And the person at the center, Marty (Colin Farrell), is a screenwriter writing the script for a project he calls "Seven Psychopaths". Is this a movie within a movie? Almost: some of the psychopaths walk next to him, and some of them are only in his mind.

I may have not listed all of the psychopaths, but according to the poster, some of the baddies include Olga Kurylenko and Abbie Cornish, even though the former is killed off without much that proves she's a psychopath while the latter isn't given much to do (but is constantly verbally abused by Sam Rockwell). Yes, the cast is terrific: you cannot go wrong when you have the likes of Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits, Rockwell, and Christopher Walken. But no, "Seven Psychopaths" has a tone much too dark for a film that wants to be so light.

I'm not a prude nor one that could say he prefers romantic comedies - but the constant shootings, the constant language, the constant violence is all so much that the film ends up feeling like that creepy guy you sit next to in class that finds "South Park" to be the best show on television, and, you're pretty sure will grow up to be a murderer. Tarantino, whose filmmaking style is somewhat similar to McDonagh, gets the combination of violence and humor right: the bloodshed can be extreme, but there is something about his characterizations that make them feel straight out of a B-movie from the 1970s. They always feel like a movie character, and the carnage is so tomato juice and corn syrup that it feels like movie carnage.

For instance, look at Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill", who could have easily fit into one of the auditions for "Seven Psychopaths". Beatrix Kiddo may have been a cold-hearted killer with mass revenge on the brain, but the world around matched her larger-than-life ambitions. She drove a bright-yellow truck with cheap flames on it that read "Pussy Wagon" on the back, in big, bold lettering because, hey, she needed a car and stole the easiest one she could get. Her hit-list included a one-eyed woman with the tongue of a juvenile delinquent all grown up, a ninja whose sidekick dresses up like a harajuku girl, etc etc. Tarantino's violent tendencies have a smile and a wink on the side; McDonagh's feel like a joke that one person pity laughs at because they want to be polite.

I know I sound harsh, and it's not intentional. McDonagh is a skilled writer and director, and I know that at some point, he'll make a film that I'll finally be able to enjoy. I don't want to complain about violence and language, because that's where movies can go as far out as they want. But when it overcomes the object of the film, which is to create a slightly tongue in cheek movie about seven psychopaths, it's hard to stomach it. It gets in the way. "Seven Psychopaths" isn't bad, and there is definitely an audience for it. I'm just not in it, and will probably never have the guts to join.