REVIEWS Reviews edited by Mark Adams


Seven Psychopaths Reviewed by Mark Adams


The pulp sensibilities of writer/director Martin McDonagh’s ambitiously oddball pop-cinema psy- cho-thriller/comedy are writ large, and with a strong cast, including Christopher Walken, Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell lap- ping up his wry and witty dialogue it seems the gloriously titled Seven Psychopaths has the tag-line ‘must-see cult film’ written all over it. The film may lack the more solid story structure


and character development that made his hitmen on holiday film In Bruges such a breakout success, but McDonagh shows a Tarantino-like touch for slick, clever and often lilting dialogue and packs his film with enough gratuitous gunplay and boister- ous bloodletting to appeal to genre fans. While the freewheeling and at times scattershot


approach — which blends tall tales and dark deeds with friendship and loyalty — may make the film slightly inaccessible to those after a linear structure and a little more space between good and bad, it is clear McDonagh has constructed a cleverly woven puzzle of a picture that bears closer examination and appreciation. Heavy-drinking writer Marty Faranan (Farrell,


who starred in In Bruges) has got a great title for his film, Seven Psychopaths, but little else. His booz- ing is trying the patience of his saint-like girlfriend Kava (Cornish), while the attempts of his best friend Billy (Rockwell) to help out just tend to cause more trouble. Billy and his partner Hans (a sublime perform-


ance by Christopher Walken) are lightweight crim- inals who make money by dognapping, though any money they make Hans insists on giving to the hospital cancer ward, where his wife is making a slow recovery. Things go badly wrong for them, however, when


they take a Shih Tzu named Bonny (played by Bonny the Shih Tzu), belonging to Los Angeles gangster Charlie Costello (Harrelson), who has an obsessive affection for the mutt and will not let anyone get in his way when it comes to finding out who took Bonny. The spine of the film is how Marty is drawn into


Hans and Billy’s bizarre and increasingly violent world, though this is simply a device for Marty (with a little assistance from the dognapping tag- team) to flesh out the seven psychopaths from his


script, leading to flights of fantasy as his cast of kill- ers comes together. Billy finds in a newspaper the story of the ‘Jack


of Diamonds killer’ — a masked man who kills mobsters and leaves a playing card on their corpse — and when Marty shows enthusiasm for the information, Billy sees himself as a ‘co-writer’ and places an advert in the newspaper asking for psy- chopaths to come forward to be interviewed. Billy is well intentioned, though his enthusiasm gets more and more extreme. The threesome of Farrell, Rockwell and Walken


dovetail together nicely. Rockwell’s brand of fierce quirkiness is nicely developed while Walken has rarely been better recently as the suave Hans. Far- rell essentially plays the straight man and observer to the rampant and increasing madness around


MIDNIGHT MADNESS


US-UK. 2012. 109mins Director/screenplay Martin McDonagh Production companies Film4, Blueprint Pictures, BFI US distribution CBS Films International sales HanWay Films, www. hanwayfilms.com Producers Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin Executive producer Tessa Ross Cinematography Ben Davis Editor Lisa Gunning Production designer David Wasco Main cast Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Gabourey Sidibe, Harry Dean Stanton, Tom Waits


him. Add to the pot a nicely deranged perform- ance by Woody Harrelson, and you have a film brimming with memorable characters and per- formances. When Hans is reading Marty’s new script he


points out he is not good at writing female charac- ters, and how the all the women he knows are clever and rounded personalities who have plenty to say. This is clearly McDonagh pointing out the criticisms that may come his way for the female characters in Seven Psychopaths. Abbie Cornish has just a few scenes as Marty’s


increasingly frustrated girlfriend (plus a moment in a fantasy sequence that does not end well for her); Olga Kurylenko pops by for one bikini-clad sequence as Charlie’s girlfriend, while Gabourey Sidibe has just one scene as Charlie’s terrified dog- walker. None are clearly defined characters, and are products of fine writing rather than developed personalities. McDonagh has most fun around the sides of the


main story — his ideas for an avenging Quaker with a straight razor or a Viet Cong killer dressed as a priest with a vendetta against the US — and builds in some wonderful cameos for the likes of Tom Waits and Harry Dean Stanton, who are so good the audience instantly cheer when they arrive on the screen. Seven Psychopaths is a deliriously twisted tale


that provides the perfect platform for Walken’s deadpan delivery and Rockwell’s gleeful loopiness, and while some aspects of the film work better than others it still offers up a barbed and bloody tale of strange psychotic killers woven together by some sublime dialogue.


n 8 Screen International at Toronto September 9, 2012


» Seven Psychopaths p8 » Ginger & Rosa p10 » What Maisie Knew p10 » Reincarnated p12


» A Liar’s Autobiography p12 » Midnight’s Children p14 » Jackie p14 » Passion p16


» The Perks Of Being A Wallflower p18


» A Hijacking p18


» All That Matters Is Past p16


» Iceberg Slim: Portrait Of A Pimp p19


» Motorway p19


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