Josh Reviews Seven Psychopaths

Marty (Colin Farrell) is a Hollywood screenwriter struggling to get going on his next film. His friend, Billy (Sam Rockwell) gives Marty the idea to write a film called Seven Psychopaths. No surprise, Marty quickly finds his life intertwined with that of several real-life psychopaths — seven, it turns out.

With Marty writing a film called Seven Psychopaths based on his experiences with seven psychopaths, while we (the audience) are watching a film called Seven Psychopaths about Marty’s experiences crossing paths with seven psychopaths, we obviously are in for some meta fun.

But sadly, Seven Psychopaths is just a warmed over, less-clever version of Adaptation (click here for my review of that far superior film). Every self-referential trick used by the film feels like something I’ve seen before, done more cleverly.  (And the film even sort of cheats by not giving us seven psychopaths, but only six! We’re supposed to think that is a neat twist, but I thought it was lame.)  Unfortunately, in my opinion the film’s story isn’t interesting enough, nor it’s characters funny enough, to be able to stand on its own if I’m not interested in the overall self-referential premise.  The film boasts a stupendous cast, but everyone feels rather stranded to me.

I really like Colin Farell, and I think he’s a better actor than he is usually given credit for.  He tries gamely to be entertaining, but I was not at all interested in this Hollywood screenwriter’s fantasy of a Hollywood screenwriter — fiercely handsome and able to stand toe to toe with violent sociopaths without backing down. I think Sam Rockwell is one of the best actors working today, but he too struggles and ultimately fails to make his character anything other than a weird collection of tics and characteristics that only come into play when the plot demands. Christopher Walken is fun to watch, and I think his is one of the few characters in the film that I found to be interesting or entertaining, though I suggest one not think too hard about the late-in-the-film revelations about his character. (I found those revelations hard to square with the character as played by Mr. Walken.)  Woody Harrison and Abbie Cornish are also fun, though again I didn’t feel they we able to elevate their characters above two-dimensional plot devices. It’s always fun to see Harry Dean Stanton, so props to the filmmakers for that. Props also for the clever Boardwalk Empire team-up in the opening scene with Michael Stuhlbarg and Michael Pitt. That was fun.

But overall, sadly, I found Seven Psychopaths to be very mediocre. It’s not bad, and I suppose if I’d never seen Adaptation I might think more highly of it. But it’s clear to me that a film with this spectacular a cast  should have been far more entertaining. Oh well.