Seven Psychopaths

In Bruges was more magical, more atmospheric and more cohesive, but I have a weak spot of weird meta stuff like this. Brutality, black humour, a psychopath at every turn and constant self reflection through the character of the screenwriter, Marty (an excellent Farrell, compensating for this year’s pointless Total Recall), and his script of Seven Psychopaths. Yeah, the film’s protagonist is writing the script of the film where he’s acting. That says everything. On the one hand, it’s a bit like covering your own ass (anything can happen and everything can be explained). On the other, it’s a chance to unleash the screenwriters and have fun writing and filming something original. Which to a greater extent they did successfully. McDonagh is awesome. (01/12/2012)

Ow! Pity half the budget was crippled by the dermatology clinic taking care of the director/screenwriter's foreskin, which was in a really underwhelming state when the script was finished, and thus the characters have to be transported to the desert for the rest of the film, where they practically just talk to each other like in some French film. I love filmmakers who try to convince me all the time that they're better than everyone else, and giving McDonagh American money to make another movie might start some kind of war. Meta-meta-meta-methadone. (15/07/2013)

This is no second In Bruges, but the rest is something I didn’t expect. McDonagh has swapped a smart black-humour tale of human nature and honour for a postcultural uncensored romp a bit in the vein of Pulp Fiction, expanded it with a few racy story detours, and included some memorable characters who can really ruin your life if you mess with them. But Seven Psychopaths has a couple of things in common with In Bruges. First of all, it's the absolutely great cast, including the traditionally unstable Farrell, the peculiar Sam Rockwell, who was probably unintentionally the biggest star of the film, the psychopathic gangster Woody Harrelson, who’s capable of anything for his little dog, and my favourite, Christopher Walken, who once again shows that he doesn't belong to the old guard yet. And then, of course, is McDonagh's brilliant direction, which gives each shot a fresh touch and somehow mysteriously manages to bring a certain amount of humanity to a purely absurd narrative, and to make the viewer feel invested in the fate of the heroes. The last star escaped because of the ending, where the actions of some of the characters were too cinematic and incomprehensible (this was also true In Bruges, but presented in an unforgettable and cinematically imaginative way). Though it's true that the moment Rockwell recounted the dream final shootout by the fire, I had no doubt about the full rating. In any case, McDonagh scores strongly again and given that he is still relatively young, we certainly have more to look forward to from him in the future. 4.5* (19/01/2013)

When the movie In Bruges appeared in movie theaters some time ago, it was a rare case where film critics agreed with film fans on the extraordinary qualities of the work and gave birth to a film where the entertaining component of the film, in the form of a darkly humorous gangster story with charismatic underworld characters, functions in close symbiosis with the dramatic existential plane, which elevates this film to the realm of film art. The director's name became known as a concept and his ego obviously strengthened because Seven Psychopaths is an ambitious work at first glance, exuding confidence and expectation of success. However, unlike In Bruges, only the first plane works here - the plane of the crazy crime story with bizarre motivations of the (anti)heroes, incredibly cool characters, and black humor based on violence. Seven Psychopaths rides the wave that was initiated in the 90s by the phenomenal success of Pulp Fiction. In fact, Martin McDonagh has made a film that is more Tarantino-like than Tarantino himself. In Bruges, he placed his characters in a real environment and endowed them with logical motivations, whereas here it is a seemingly artificial screenwriting construct that creaks and grinds wherever you look. Of course, if all the characters represent exemplary psychopaths, you can excuse all the script acrobatics and missteps by saying that nothing else can be expected from a gang of psychopaths. But I'm not satisfied with this trick. Games with genre rules were demonstrated at a much more cultivated level by Altman in his film The Player, so I have no reason to rate it higher than 2 stars. I try to perceive this film exclusively as a comedy because, in the positions of the other two genres of crime and drama, it inevitably fails. Martin McDonagh did not resist attempting a scene with philosophical insight, but considering the overall character of the film, it appears rather alien and lacks catharsis - see the culmination of the life journey of the Vietnamese killer. Overall impression: 45%. However, if you enjoy witty lines, people getting shot in the head, and overacting actors having a good time, you will not be disappointed and you can rate it much higher. (12/02/2013)

Nobody writes dialogue and scripts as stupid as Martin McDonagh these days. This one is even more stupid, absurd (in the negative sense of the word) and clueless than In Bruges. I don’t know what this bloke’s playing at, but I reckon we’ll never be friends. If this is supposed to be some fresh, unorthodox direction in contemporary modern cinema, I, as a viewer, don't want to be part of it. Thank God for Tarantino... (18/01/2013)