Movie Reviews

David Fincher's Seven is a really dark cop drama about two detectives, one nearly-retired (Morgan Freeman) and the other much younger and less-jaded (Brad Pitt) hunting a serial killer who appears to be killing his victims in "inventive" ways relating to the seven deadly sins.

There's some really gruesome stuff in Seven. The film itself is not particularly violent, per se, but Fincher doesn't hold back on showing the after-effects of the violence perpetrated by the serial killer. I don't know why stuff like this should make for such compelling film, but I can't deny that it does (I suppose any answer to that question would require some kind of extensive pyschological study into the human condition... or something).

What is undeniably admirable about Seven, though, is the acting. Freeman is really great (he usually is) in portraying the tired, weary, but driven senior detective (I think his best stuff here comes out in the two conversations he has with Pitt's wife, played by Gwyneth Paltrow), and Pitt is good, too. The star performance though is definitely Kevin Spacey, who shows up uncredited (and nameless) at the end of the film as the killer. It's an amazingly understated but somehow still incredibly intense role as a really twisted freak who somehow is unquestionably assured that what he is doing is for the best mankind. I think Spacey is at his best when he does darker stuff like this, as opposed to schlock like Pay it Forward.

It feels kind of wierd calling such a dark and gruesome film like Seven 'entertaining', but there's no doubt that there is some kind of twisted enjoyment to be gotten out of it. Though, undoubtedly, if the acting and filmmaking weren't so high-quality it wouldn't be as good a film as it is.