Seven Psychopaths| B
How meta can you get? Martin
McDonagh is determined to find out in his demented, pulp riff on Tarantino-style
faux gangster-noir. Threading together profanity-laced dialogue and splashes of
bloody carnage with a plot that twists Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in
Search of an Author and Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation into a
blood-soaked narrative bow, Seven Psychopaths layers on the meta-fiction
thick and fast.
Colin Farrell is Marty, an Irish
alcoholic screenwriter struggling to finish his script entitled “Seven
Psychopaths” (do you see where this going?). Marty bemoans Hollywood’s need for
yet another hyper-violent guys-with-guns flick. Which is exactly the kind of
movie his best pal Billy (Sam Rockwell) thinks he should be writing. Billy
makes his living by kidnapping dogs with his dapper partner Hans (Christopher
Walken). When the two inadvertently steal the beloved Shih Tzu of Charlie, a
highly unstable crime boss (Woody Harrelson), Marty finds himself immersed in
the same brutal, trigger-happy world he’s rejected as a writer.
McDonagh’s theatrical roots (The
Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Pillowman, The Cripple of Inishman) are more
than apparent in Seven Psychopaths, as the film frequently and gleefully
digresses into extended monologues, stories within stories, and lengthy bouts
of verbal irreverence. While the bloodshed is copious and unapologetic, no
cultural reference or social issue is too sacred to fall into the
script’s crosshairs. Heck, even Gandhi takes it on the chin. It’s what you’d
expect from the filmmaker whose first feature, In Bruges, featured a
coke-addled dwarf pontificating about the impending race riots to a pair of
Belgian hookers. (Strangely, here, the Shih Tzu makes it out alive.)
Unfortunately, Seven
Psychopaths can’t maintain the fevered pitch and inspired cleverness of its
best moments. There’s simply too much going on, too many subplots and
supporting players to juggle. While Tom Waits nearly steals the show in a pair
of tangential scenes, Abbie Cornish and Olga Kurylenko are essentially
throwaway girlfriends, sad proof that women are not only ignored in most Hollywood thrillers but often insulted and brutalized. McDonagh is self-aware and
self-deprecating enough to cleverly echo this point, but not savvy enough to
actually do anything with the revelation.
His movie also lacks resonance.
It’s not that I expect the film’s series of smartass nesting dolls to deliver a
profoundly emotional experience. His characters are outrageously conceived
caricatures for a reason. But in commenting on Hollywood’s shallow and
gratuitous use of violence (Rockwell’s fantasy of what his final showdown
should look like is a psychotic hoot), Seven Psychopaths tries to hold
up Farrell’s Marty and Walken’s Hans as the pacifist response to genre demands.
It’s a noble conceit, but without a deeper connection to either character the
message doesn’t hit home the way it should.
Still, as you might expect with a
cast like this, McDonagh has struck gold. Rockwell is a maniacal force of
nature, in turns psychotic then sincere. The actor is clearly having the time
of his life, and his live-wire exuberance is infectious. Walken’s world-weary
melancholy and unassuming charm is the perfect counterbalance, providing the
movie with what little soul it has. Farrell, who could have easily been
overshadowed by both, stands his ground, finding both humor and empathy in his
underwritten straight man.
Deconstructing itself as the story
plays out, Seven Psychopaths esteems to be more than just a movie within
a movie that becomes the movie we’re watching. I think McDonagh is expressing
his personal misgivings about the kind of violence audiences and the film
industry expect. Although In Bruges certainly wasn’t shy when it came to
depicting acts of brutality, its foundation was built on moral guilt and
personal responsibility. While McDonagh’s choice to put comedy before commentary
may make Seven Psychopaths an entertaining experience, he has traded
weight for wit and substance for silliness. The ending is hardly a thesis
statement on violence in movies, but McDonagh’s point is crystal clear.
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2012.