Some Things I Think I Think About Seven Psychopaths

[rdansky]

1. It's a very writerly movie.
2. And by "writerly", I mean "long, chewy monologues" and, more to the point, the whole thing is about the writer character, whose inability to write is set up as the biggest tragedy in a film full of death, murder, bereavement, cancer, psychosis, and dognapping.
3. Sam Rockwell is brilliant. Then again, Sam Rockwell is always brilliant.
4. Colin Farrell is largely inert. Most of his acting is done with his liver and his eyebrows
5. I think we're past the point where independent films have to demonstrate that they're edgy by throwing random ethnic or other slurs out there. Woody Harrelson's character was plenty spooky without suddenly dropping into cut-rate Tarantino mode.
6. Everyone in this movie wants to help the writer, be the writer, or hang out with the writer. People kill and die in their quest to help out the writer put together a script that he demonstrably has contributed absolutely nothing to. Now, speaking as a writer myself, I'd love it if people were tripping all over themselves to inspire me, but I feel I need to bring something to the process, too.
7. Generally, when a friend of mine stands revealed as a psychopathic murderer, I don't say "You know what? Let's hang out and do peyote"
8. It seems very obvious that the sum total of the direction given Christopher Walken was "Wear a cravat". Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
9. Ultimately, it felt like a lot of great lines that didn't add up to a movie.
10. No matter how you slice it, there aren't actually seven psychopaths in this movie
11. I look forward to the day when Jean Reno's character from The Professional returns to save us all from the flood of talky, self-referential hit men