Seven pyschos

Okay doke, I thought I would get another review done (as that is what this blog is about after all!) and this one is on a more recent up to date film, Seven Psychopaths, a crime comedy written and directed by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.  So let's grab a butchers and disect this rather sick ass bad boy....

So the film's story revolves around a struggling writer, Marty Faranan (Colin Farrell) who is longing to try and find a way to finish his screenplay, which he calls Seven Psychopaths.  Marty's best friend, Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell) is an out of work actor who makes money by stealing peoples dogs and returning them to their owner and collecting the reward money.  Billy's partner is Hans Kieslowski (Christopher Walken) a middle aged man who is of religious faith and has a cancer stricken wife named Myra (Linda Bright Clay).  Billy also tries to help Marty with writing his screenplay and suggests the masked "Jack of Diamonds" killer who has been in the press, and we see kill two mobsters at the start of the film.  Billy and Hans during their pet bulgaries, steal a Shih Tzu named Bonny, although they are unaware of the fact the dog in fact belongs to Charlie Costello (Woody Harrleson) who is a violent gangster.  Charlie soon learns of Han's connection through his own men, who soon catch up with Hans and Billy and they threaten to kill them unless they reveal Bonny's whereabouts.  However at this point the masked Jack of Diamonds killer arrives and shoots the men dead and leave his calling cards behind.

Around at this time Billy also places an ad in the newspaper for psychopaths to come forward and share their quirky stories so they can be used in Marty's screenplay  And one man that comes forward is Zachariah Rigby (Tom Waits) who shares his story with them.  Meanwhile Charlie in an effort to find his dog approaches Han's wife Myra in the hospital and he kills her when she refuses to co-operate with him.  Billy in the meantime has not only been behind the kidnap of Charlies dog, but it is also revealed (PLOT SPOILER HERE!!) that he is cheating on Charlie, as he is seeing the gangster's girlfriend, Angela (Olga Kurylenko) behind his back.  On hearing from Hans that Myra was killed, Billy hangs up and shoots Angela and gives her a Jack of diamonds card revealing that he is the masked killer.  After this Billy meets up with Marty and Hans and they drive out to the desert to avoid a confrontation with Charlie and in doing so they also try and help find a way for Marty to finish his screenplay.

As a follow up to his debut film feature, In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths continue in quite a similar vein as McDonagh continues his love affair with guns and gangsters.  McDonagh's writing in particular is excellent in the film and it features plenty of great dialogue which I will get to some of a bit later and in the film he creates some vivd and colourful characters.  And Marty is the sane centre of the film, although he himself has his own demons as he has a drinking problem and suffers a breakup with his girlfriend at the start of the film and its his mission to complete his screenplay that keeps him going.  Billy on the other hand is a carefree guy who on the outside appears to be a bit of a loose canon, but in actuality is in fact a stone cold psychopath who will kill anyone at the drop of a hat.  And Hans is the eccentric middle aged pyschopath, who turns out to be the inspiration for one of the pyschos in Marty's story, as he was a quaker who haunted the killer of his daughter to the point where he killer did himself in and Hans from the story reveals that he cut his own throat, but survived the incident.

Which brings me to the performances, which are all excellent, starting with Colin Farrell, who plays Marty in his own native Irish accent, as a whiny man who is desparate to complete his story, but can't quite figure out how to.  Farrell as Marty has some funny lines, and one of which that stands out is when he is in the desert with Billy and Hans, and Billy has called Charlie to come after them, meanwhile Hans takes some peyote and goes on a spiritual trip.  And as Billy tells him to calm down and stop drinking, Marty replies "This guy just telephoned a psycho killer to come down and pyscho kill us.  And this guy is doubting a lifelong belief in the afterlife because of a psychedelic cactus he just ate!  And you motherfuckers are gonna tell me to behave?!".  Farrell also provide us with one great last moment in the film's final scene (ANOTHER SPOILER SORRY!!) where he receives an unexpected call from Rigby, who is angered at Marty having not kept his promise to give him a mention in the film's credits, and Rigby intends to kill him, but when he hears how resigned Marty is to accepting it, Rigby decides to let him live.

Sam Rockwell is great as Billy, Marty's best friend, who just happens to be a psychopathic killer himself.  Rockwell get's plenty of great lines.  One for starters is when he says to Billy how he punched a director, and Marty tells him off for it and Billy says "I didn't mean to break his nose.  His nose was just in the middle of where I was punching!".  Also later on when he holds Charlie's dog at gunpoint with Charlie's flare gun and he says to him "I'm gonna count from five, and then your little gay dog is gonna get shot in its little fuckin gay head!".  Rockwell also provides one of the film's funniest moments when he tells them how he seees Marty's screenplay finish with a big over the top gunfight in a graveyard.  Also when Marty says to him "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" which is a logic which is wasted on Billy who says "No it doesn't! There will be one guy left with one eye.  How is the last blind guy gonna take out the eye of the last guy left?!".  And after he finishes his dramatic version of his ending for Marty's screenplay he asks them what they think, and Marty and Hans are lost for words, and Marty says "Its..... its.... very moving" and Hans says "It's got layers.  It's got lots of layers!".  

Christopher Walken is also terrific in his role as the eccentric Hans, who seems to wander around in his own dream world.  Walken provides some great moments in the film, one of which I liked was when he records using Marty's dictaphone a possible ending for his screenplay.  Walken's funniest scene comes when he walks through the desert on his own and eventually arrives on a road where Charlie's men are waiting.  And one of them, Paulo, demands that Hans put his hands up and the following priceless exchange occurs:

Paulo: Put your hands up!
Hans: No.
Paula: What?
Hans: I said no.
Paulo: Why not?!
Hans: Because I don't want to.
Paulo: I've got a gun.
Hans: I don't care.
Paulo: That doesn't make any sense!
Hans: Too bad!

In other performances, Woody Harrelson is also funny and at the same time quite intimidating as the violent and erratic gangster Charlie Costello, who while he is a loose canon with a bad temper, also has a soft spot for his pet dog.  Woody has some good moments, especially in his opening scene where he interrogates a terrified black woman about the loss of his dog, and he eventually shoots his gun at her, but doesn't kill her and he says "You can go now".  And later when he drives with Marty back towards Billy, he says that Marty should have taken a gun, and Marty says he doesn't believe in them, to which Charlie incredulously says "You don't believe in guns?! They ain't fucking leprechauns you dumb Mick!".  Tom Waits also provides a short but very noteworthy cameo as one of the pyschopaths, Rigby, who tells his story of how years ago he went on a bloody killing spree with a black woman named Maggie.  And he provides the film with one final great moment when he calls up Marty at the end of the film and says he will kill him because he didn't keep his promise to leave a message at the end of the credits for him.  But as Marty sounds resigned to his fate, Rigby is surprised and says "You sound different, you sound like you've been through the wringer!" and Marty quietly replies "A little" after which Rigby decides to spare him.

Getting onto Martin McDonagh who does a great job here with his dual role as writer and director of the film and he keeps the film pretty taut throughout.  McDonagh also doesn't pull any punches with some of the film's violent imagery, especially in the killing spree scene with Rigby and his black girlfriend Maggie, who sets fire to her victims and even saws one of their heads off, and the Buhddist monk who also dishes out some nasty deaths, its pretty extreme stuff at times!  McDonagh does however have some fun with staging the fantasy action scenes, especially when Billy gives his version of how Marty's script should end with a big gunfight going on, with Marty hunched in the graveyard trying to dodge the bullets, and in the end get's up and joins in!  And lastly I will mention Carter Burwell, the Cohen brothers regular composer who provides a really good sombre music score, which suits the tone of the film very well.

As for any flaws or niggles, Seven Psychopaths does have one or two it has to be said.  I felt towards the end of the film it started to lose itself in a rather muddled climactic fight scene at the end between Billy and Charlie, and at the end we don't really find out what happens to Charlie as a result and it was a rather unsatisfying resolution.  The film also has an excellent cast but some of the actors that are featured are really underused in very brief cameos such as Harry Dean Stanton as the "Quaker" psychopath who stalks the killer of his daughter.  Also the lovely Olga Kurylenko is underused in her role as Charlie's girlfriend and she really only has one scene in the film.  And actually this highlights an issue which Christopher Walken's character Hans brings up in that "the female characters in your screenplay are awful! As they barely say anything! And at least the girls I speak to can string a sentence together!" which you could arguably say the same for McDonagh's own screenplay as the female characters are largely sidelined here.

However despite all that Seven Psychopaths is still an entertaining black comedy, which is filled with rich characters and great dialogue, and excellent performances from the four leads.  And if you have seen and liked In Bruges, and haven't seen this yet then it is worth checking out.

So with that I shall leave it there!