Seven Pychopaths Review
A fun movie, filled with dark humor, quirky characters, and misogamy.
I am not really a fan of misogamy, but almost every other aspect of this movie kind of rocked from me. 
Weird story, dangerous, psychotic characters, and some of my favorite actors, including the great Christopher Walken (Fear the Walken image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). The misogamy takes the form of every female character having less than three minutes on screen and most of them dying in brutal ways, but I don’t honestly think that was the filmmakers intention.
Oh, on a less generous day I might say the story wandered back and forth a bit and kind of lacked focus, but a movie called Seven Psychopaths that is about seven psychopaths can be forgiven for dropping story in favor of more character development. The characters are all laid out and presented very well, with what I consider enough time spent on each to give the audience an understanding of their individual nuances. This film is definitely a character study, with each of the seven being different shades of guys you never want to ever mess with. While I am of course a Walken fan I have to give mass recognition to Woody Harrelson as the scariest nut job since Natural Born Killers.
The story is of Marty (Colin Farrell-Total Recall, In Bruges, Fright Night), a struggling (sort of. He sure has a nice apartment and hot girlfriend for a struggling writer. Most of the struggling writers I knew in LA were lucky if they had a clean dumper to sleep in) writer who is working on writing a script about seven psychopaths and killing his liver with alcohol. He is friends with one psychopaths Billy (Sam Rockwell-Iron Man 2, Napoleon Dynomite, Cowboys and Aliens) who makes a living by kidnapping dogs and then returning them once a reward is posted. He is assisted by Hans (Christopher Walken-True Romance, Joe Dirt, Things to do in Denver when you are Dead), who’s wife is in the hospital. They both have secrets that are revealed during the film, and in order to help Marty Billy starts telling him stories about psychopaths he has met or heard of, including the Jack of Diamonds killer who only kills mafia guys.
Billy and Hans make the mistake of kidnapping a dog belonging to local gang kingpin Charlie (Woody Harrelson-Friends with Benefits, Zombieland, No Country for Old Men), who is a violent sociopath who cares for not a thing in the world except his precious dog. He starts on a rampage across LA to find his dog. Other characters are introduced, including some convoluted back and side stories. The fourth wall gets beaten on pretty heavily (it is strongly implied that the script Marty is working on is actually the script for the movie we are watching, and some of the characters may or may not have been fictional from the protagonists point of view. At one point Hans even says “You don’t know how to write female characters” in reference to all the misogamy) but in a good way. I don’t want to get too much deeper into this film as it is full of potential spoilers.
The stars. I love a movie that treats characters as the reason for existing, rather than the necessary horses needed to pull the film plow. Two stars. Most of the characters were each in their own way intriguing and interesting. One star. Woody Harrelson was particularly good. One star. So was Christopher Walken. One star. Filming was admirable, and pacing quite good. One star. Dark humor is always fun for me, and really lacking in movies these days. One star. In general a good, fun movie. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. The story kind of lacked focus. It wandered from set piece vignette to set piece vignette, and we got to the third act without really understanding a lot of the motivation behind it. Consequently the ending was kind of flaccid. One black hole. There was one character who did not add a lot from the film and was really like watching a mini film outside of the story. He later came to play an expository role towards the end but honestly that could have been done with any of the characters involved in the story. One black hole. I’ll give one for the misogamy just because I have enough friends who will give me crap if I don’t. I don’t think it was a critical element of the film but once I notice it I kept coming back to it. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
A grand total of six stars, a very good score for me. Should you see it? Yes, in my opinion. I think most people will find at least one character that holds interest. If you like psychology, good drama, and plot twists for sure. If all you want is guns and explosions this film is actually kind of light in those. Date movie? Maybe. I’m not really sure how this one would play out. Could go either way, and therefore I would not recommend it based on the principle of “if it doesn’t help your cause, get rid of it”. However, if your date is into characters she might enjoy it. Bathroom break? At 110 minutes you might need one, but I am struggling to figure out where to do it. Maybe the scene where Marty, Billy, and Hans are all camping out in the desert. You definitely don’t want to miss any of the Charlie scenes.
Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Post any comments on this film or my review here, and if you have any off topic questions or suggestion feel free to email me at [email protected]. Lots more to see this week, so hopefully I’ll have something for you soon.
By the way, I got a note from casting director looking to do a reality TV show where they take low manliness men and send them to Man Camp or something. It has been a while since I did any of my Nerd Dating Advice columns but I can highly recommend machismo as a means of attracting women. If you or someone you know struggles with confidence, can’t seem to talk sports, likes drinks with fruit and umbrellas, and is just a little too much in touch with his feminine side consider it. I would go in myself but I’m afraid all my massive machismo in that room might spontaneously form cold fusion and cause a quantum singularity that would rip our planet apart, so for the sake of the human race will refrain. However, it seems like it could be fun and who knows? Maybe it will change your life or at least get you some notoriety you can exploit to hook up with reality TV groupies.
Talk to you all soon.
Dave
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