Seven Psychopaths
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Written by Martin McDonagh
with Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken
2012
Difficult second film. Martin McDonaghclearly felt he had to step over a rut with his follow-up to In Bruges, but in doing so he’s simply highlighted the best aspects of that film by deliberately avoiding them yet failing to replace them with anything as satisfactory. Seven Psychopaths can definitely be viewed as a writer’s block film, but if McDonagh was suffering it doesn’t feel as if he overcame it before finalising the screenplay.
Writer Martin (Colin Farrell) is struggling to finish a script – called ‘Seven Psychopaths’ – in which he wants to undermine all the usual clichés of violence and violent people in traditional Hollywood films. As he tries to come up with suitable characters, he finds himself embroiled in a situation involving the real-life criminally insane, after his friend Billy (Sam Rockwell), a petty crook who kidnaps dogs with ageing conman Hans (Christopher Walken) and innocently returns them to their owner once a reward has been posted, unwittingly steals a shih tzu belonging to a fearsome gangster (Woody Harrelson). Unavoidably implicated in the crime, Martin goes on the run with Billy and Hans, and ends up getting a far closer look at the psychopathic mindset than he ever hoped for.
I was really looking forward to Seven Psychopaths, and I was determined not to compare it too remorselessly to In Bruges because I knew the chances of me liking it as much were very small. I was right about the last part, but even more so than I’d made allowances for, and unfortunately for this review in ways that are best articulated through comparison. The fact that it’s not as engrossing or sad as In Bruges is fine, given that McDonagh has clearly gone far more for wacky comedy this time round, except it’s not as funny, either. It is also possible to detect similar aims in its portrayal of male relationships, but again the script doesn’t even begin to create the depth and emotional complexity of that between the three male leads in In Bruges. This is why it’s difficult to avoid comparing Seven Psychopaths to his first film: the bits which are further away from it stylistically just aren’t as coherent, and the parts which are recognisably part of a running artistic theme aren’t as powerful, a worst-of-both-worlds scenario which means you’re constantly reminded of what McDonagh’s actually capable of.
The effort that’s gone into making a film as different to In Bruges is recognisable and laudable. There are a good few flashes of brilliance, too (Christopher Walken’s face-to-face with Woody Harrelson in a hospital waiting room is really something). But for all that, In Bruges is one of the most tightly scripted and coherent films of recent years – not one line is wasted, despite the amount of seemingly pointless chitchat, and without ever seeming simplistic it’s so well written that a ten-year-old could tell you what the subtext was – while Seven Psychopaths is wandering and unfocused, with throwaway lines constantly fired off into the ether. This isn’t inherently damning, but what is is the fact that the ideas which do come through, to do with fantasy hero violence vs the bathetic reality and so on, are comparatively half-baked and just kind of uninteresting. However, I can’t in all good conscience finish on that note without making the obvious point that if you don’t regard In Bruges as a sort of holy text you’ll probably enjoy this a lot more than me.
Tom
