The story of Seven Psychopaths, like all of McDonagh's work, is always hard to pin down. You can guess where it's going but it was a total fluke if you actually predicted it correctly. It revolves around Marty (Colin Farrell), an alcoholic Irish screenwriter (Get it?) who is trying to come up with seven psychopathic characters for his new film entitled Seven Psychopaths (Seriously, do you get it? Because if you don't you shouldn't watch movies).
His best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is a struggling actor who wants nothing more than to help write Marty's screenplay and potentially star in it. But he's not very good at it. So in his spare time he and Hans (Christopher Walken) steal dogs from the park and then bring them back to their owners to collect the reward money. Only one day, they steal Charlie's (Woody Harrlson) adorable Shih Tzu. Charlie is a ruthless mob boss who loves his dog way more than his girlfriend or anything else in life.
And that's about as much as I can summarize without ruining some really fun and creative parts of the film. There's a whole lot more going on and I don't want to spoil anything.
So let's talk about the film's strengths. You don't see writing and dialogue like this outside of a Tarantino movie. Except I think it is even better. It's quick, it's funny and if you look away for a second you might miss the brilliance of it. Of course thankfully this time there is only one Irish accent. (I am notoriously bad at understanding other accents) The actors themselves are top notch. Sam Rockwell is in peak form as he always is, Colin Farrell is always better when he plays an alcoholic Irishman, Tom Waits is gleefully delightful as a psychopath and Woody Harrelson is forever awesome when holding a gun.
But the shining star (if there is allowed to be one) is Christopher Walken. Every line out of his mouth was either hilarious, poignant, thought-provoking or so tear jerking you want to hug him. This is his Supporting Actor Oscar nomination to lose.
And the gore! Oh god it is wonderful. McDonagh has a little love affair with gratuitous, but at the same time, hilarious amounts of gore. Headshots, throat slittings, blood shooting everywhere. It gets graphic. Thankfully, while gross, it doesn't stray too far into the too much area but it might be a little shocking to many viewers.
But Seven Psychopaths fails on a couple of levels. There's a little bit of "Hollywood" as my friends called it, pushed into the film. It's not bad, but it is noticeable. There's also several storylines happening at any one time. And both the trailer and the poster are an extreme lie. The trailer doesn't even mention the screenwriting plot and the poster lists two women as some of the psychopaths. Combined, those actresses have about 5 lines of dialogue before disappearing forever. Which results in a hilarious scene in which Hans reads Marty's script.
"Do you know women who can string coherent sentences together?"
"Yes."
"Then where are they in this screenplay?"
The film also does a poor job of connecting the scenes. Halfway through the movie they end up in the desert. With tents. With no real explanation as to how, or why they drove from L.A. to the desert.
Seven Psychopaths delivers a unique twist on the old person in a movie trying to write a screenplay gag. And it has some of the best actors in the biz going at it with some fantastic lines of dialogue. People who aren't familiar with In Bruges probably won't enjoy it. The scenes tend to have a disconnect and it just wasn't organized well. A little too many good ideas forcefully shoved into one movie.
2 1/2 stars out of 4
-Christopher O'Connell
P.S. No one can deny the brilliance and sheer creativity shown in Christopher Walken's final monologue. I wish I could come up with ideas like that.
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