“Seven Psychopaths” (2012)
Quentin Tarantino meets Charlie Kaufman.
What do you get if you combine a desperate Hollywood screenwriter with writers block who has a title for a script but little more than it has to be “life affirming” about psychopaths, and a friend who places an advert in a local newspaper for psychopaths to help his screenwriting friend whilst he also kidnaps prized local dogs for ransom alongside another friend and who are now in fear of their lives for kidnapping the wrong dog from the wrong local gangster? Add into the mix a gravelly voiced psychopath who has a fondness for rabbits as well as sating the psychopathic bloodlust of his partner, a Buddhist killer, no, a Quaker Priest and a hooded angel of vengeance who leaves a Jack of Diamonds playing card with all of his deathly scalps?
Now shoot these characters through the writing and directing of Martin McDonagh and the acting talents of Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish and Harry Dean Stanton, add a little of Carter Burwell’s sublime musical score and you’ll have an alcoholic screenwriter that is also “suicidal” and “full of self loathing” angrily swimming in the tide created by his best friend as he and his cravat wearing friend avoid the sharp dressed gangster out for blood as well as the return of his dog.
In short you have Seven Psychopaths, the second film from London born filmmaker Martin McDonagh, and a Quentin Tarantino/Charlie Kaufman mix of a sharp and acerbic play within a play amid the darkest of black comedy.
“I’m going to be over to kill you Tuesday”.
“That’s good, I’m not doing anything Tuesday”.
Together with a personal favourite of “God loves us. He’s just got a funny way of showing it sometimes”, this is yet another brilliantly crafted screenplay from Martin McDonagh albeit in his least likeable film. This isn’t to say the full moon shots or the sun setting in the desert or our gang of three bumbling and bungling fools laughing uproariously around a camp fire away from those crazy psychopaths seeking to sate their murderous desires isn’t a good film because it clearly is, and bizarrely so. But Seven Psychopaths just isn’t as good as In Bruges and not as great as Three Billboards Outing Ebbing, Missouri or The Banshees of Inisherin.
That said, it fits perfectly within McDonagh’s cinematic work to date of four very highly recommended films.
Thanks for reading. My odyssey with the films of Martin McDonagh is now complete and here are my spoiler free appraisals of the remainder of his cinematic cannon in release date order:
