A funny, witty, self-reverential, post-modern hitman movie that to keep the laughs coming whilst never becoming sentimental. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, especially about a Martin McDonagh film. While In Bruges was admired by fans and critics alike, I found it took far too many liberties with its material and was too clever-clever by half.
While the same criticisms could, in theory, be levelled at Seven Psychopaths, the film is way ahead of its audience this time. Clearly based on McDonagh’s presumed writer’s block after In Bruges, it centres around Colin Farrell again, playing a writer trying to get his film idea, Seven Psychopaths, down on paper yes, it’s post-modern story-within-a-story time again.
Farrell is stuck though he is too boozy and lazy to actually write anything, his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) is unsupportive and only his pal (Sam Rockwell) gets him out of bed in the morning. Rockwell’s profession is kidnapping dogs, then claiming the reward, but when he takes the dog of psycho Woody Harrelson, it sets off a chain of killings and chases that all becomes very complicated, but resolves itself in satisfactory manner according to the rules of film-writing, which Farrell himself keeps quoting.
The remarkable achievement of McDonagh’s film is that however bogged down it becomes in film theory it always stays entertaining and more importantly engaging. One of the psychos of the title, a Vietnamese pacifist who decides to take revenge on the USA for the atrocities on his village, appears to be thrown in and forgotten about, but fear not, McDonagh finds a use for him by the end. He even has Christopher Walken read Farrell’s screenplay and make amendments to it amendments which find their way into the real film.
Essays in film structure have never been this entertaining, nor have on-screen killings. One sequence has the villain’s head exploded by a handgun, before Farrell and Walken have a good laugh about it in the car: heads don’t explode not unless they are made of explosives’. Somehow though the fate of these apparently despicable men remain interesting even Rockwell, who early on kills his girlfriend, Olga Kurylenko, for no apparent reason, and in quite a nasty way. That’s no way to treat a Bond girl.
The shadow of Tarantino is all over this story, especially when Walken re-enacts his famous scene from True Romance, except this time he appears to be on the receiving end. Even Tarantino though would struggle to come up with as many violent deaths and snappy one-liners as this.
McDonagh is hugely assisted by some terrific performances. Farrell is the exhausted, alcohol-fuelled writer trying to hold it all together, while Rockwell and Harrelson have a blast as psychos, each pushing the other to further extremes. Walken rises above his usual blank-eyed stare to provide the heart of the film, a possible madman but one with a personal tragedy and a heavy burden.
Overall verdict: A refreshing blast of post-modern Hollywood storytelling, with a great script and cast. Blows away the cobwebs of a thousand film studies lectures in 100 minutes.
Reviewer: Mike Martin