Review of Seven Psychopaths (2012) by Kent D — 12 May 2014

What a cool movie, loved it!

This is the second full length feature from Martin McDonagh (after the brilliant 'In Bruges'), not to be confused with his brother John Michael McDonagh (who helmed the excellent 'The Guard' with my perennial favourite Brendan Gleeson, who starred in In Bruges alongside Colin Farrell's who's in both this and In Bruges... keeping it all in the Irish family ha).

This is fiercely smart, funny film-making, revolving around a script within a script, being written by the hilarious Farrell's alcohol-dependent Marty, with regularly unwelcome help from his best mate Billy (the phenomenally good Sam Rockwell, who can do no wrong in my book - he's a great dancer ('Charlie's Angels'), comedian ('Galaxy Quest'), actor ('Moon') etc ... the list could feature pretty much everything he's done, and he doesn't disappoint here).

Marty has the cool name, Seven Psychopaths, but is still unclear who they are and what they're going to do.

Billy has a gig kidnapping dogs and returning them to claim the rewards offered by desperate owners, in which he's partnered by Hans (Christopher Walken at his scene-stealing best) who uses the money to pay his terminally ill wife's medical bills.

Billy makes the mistake of kidnapping mob boss Charlie's (Woody Harrelson) beloved dog, but not before regaling Marty with tales of various real life psychopaths, tales that both plant seeds in Marty's mind and may also be a little closer to reality than he might've hoped.

Tom Waits, Harry Dean Stanton, and Zeljko Ivanec all show up in excellent little parts, but the script is what makes this so great. It's every bit as clever as 'In Bruges', if not moreso, and both makes fun of Hollywood conventions whilst exploiting them (SO well) at the same time (at one point Hans criticises Marty for the shallow caricatures that are his female characters, which echoes the film's one-can-only-assume deliberate underuse of Abbie Cornish and Olga Kurylenko).

This comes highly recommended, for fans of In Bruges and those who like smart, cool movies and don't mind excessive violence and bad language (and if you do, HTFU, you're missing out!).