Irish playwright Martin McDonagh garnered critical acclaim
for his feature film debut, In Bruges,
which was one of my favorite films of 2008. It also marked a career best
performance from Colin Farrell. In Bruges
was a dark comedy about two hitmen hiding out in Belgium that could best be
described as Tarantino crossed with Fellini. McDonagh’s sophomore is more like
Tarantino meets Charlie Kaufman, a violent comedy titled Seven Psychopaths.
Farrell plays Marty, a struggling alcoholic screenwriter, as
if there is any other kind. He’s working on a screenplay for a movie called Seven Psychopaths. All he has is the
title and stories about two psychopaths. One is a Quaker exacting his own
unique brand of justice against his daughter’s murderer and one about a former
Viet Cong on a mission of revenge for the My Lai Massacre. Marty’s best friend
is Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell), an aspiring actor. When he’s not punching out
directors at auditions, Billy runs a dognapping operation with Hans
(Christopher Walken), an elderly eccentric, who dutifully visits his wife at
the cancer ward.
One day, Billy kidnaps a little Shih Tzu named Bonny, who
belongs to a volatile gangster named Charlie Costello. He’ll do everything
necessary to get his beloved dog back including shooting Precious (Gabourey
Sidibe) in the face.
Seven Psychopaths
unfolds through a twisting meta-textual narrative. It’s no coincidence that a
movie starring an Irish screenwriter was written and directed by one too.
Throughout the film, McDonagh comments on his own work while also lampooning
Hollywood conventions. The unsophisticated Billy thinks Marty’s script would be
improved by an over-the-top climatic shootout, which leads to a wild fantasy
with double fisted gunplay and heads literally exploding upon the impact of a
single bullet. But, Marty wants to make something deeper without all the
mindless violence. Yet, the movie does end with a final shootout though it
doesn’t go as Billy imagined. For the most part, McDonagh successfully has his
cake and eats it too though it doesn’t work when it comes to the women in Seven Psychopaths. Hans chastises Marty
for his poorly written female characters, a critique levied on McDonagh, one
that is certainly valid here. Though
Olga Kurylenko and Abbie Cornish are featured prominently, they get barely a
handful of lines. The latter randomly shows up in wet t-shirt. While that scene
is meant to represent Billy’s adolescent indulgences, does calling attention to
his underrepresentation of women really excuse it? The one actress who does get
any sort of meaty role is Linda Bright Clay as Hans’s wife, Myra, though she’s
mainly there to be put into peril in order to spur on her husband.
This is clearly a guy’s movie and the men of Seven Psychopaths are wildly
entertaining. Farrell mostly plays the straight man to the zany characters
around him. Rockwell is hilarious as the off-kilter ringleader while
Christopher Walken gets one of his most Christopher Walken-y roles to date. Yes,
he’s weird and menacing, but Walken is the heart of the movie with a tenderness
that you don’t expect from the King of New York. Woody Harrelson is terrific as
the unhinged Charlie Costello, plus he has noted character actors Kevin
Corrigan and Zeljko Ivanec as his henchmen.
The real star of Seven
Psychopaths is McDonagh’s dialogue that sparkles off the page and energizes
the interactions between his characters. McDonagh tackles his words with a
stylish flair in the vein of Tarantino and Mamet. The picture sets it all up in
the opening sequence with a pair of loquacious hitmen (Michael Pitt and Michael
Stuhlbarg) discussing their jobs and John Dillinger before a sudden and deadly
exclamation point. The dialogue helps to take your mind off the fact that
McDonagh is stuffed his film to the gills with a myriad of sub-plots such as a
masked vigilante known as the Jack of Diamonds. One of the most intriguing
asides belongs to Tom Waits as a mysterious rabbit owner, who tells Marty his
past as a serial killer who targeted other serial killers.
Seven Psychopaths
could also be called Lock, Stock, and Two
Smoking Adaptations. It’s a messy comedy that manages to come together
thanks to a talented ensemble and well-written dialogue.
Rating: *** (*****)
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