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Seven Psychopaths

(No longer in theaters)

Rating: R — for strong violence, bloody images, pervasive language, sexuality/nudity and some drug use
Director: Martin McDonagh Cast: Collin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Abbie Cornish, Sam Rockwell
Running Time: 109 minutes
Reader Rating: Write a Review

Rate & Review

Genre

Action/Adventure, Comedy

Producer

Martin McDonagh, Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin

Distributor

CBS Films

Release Date

Oct 12, 2012

Release Notes

Nationwide

Official Website

www.sevenpsychopaths.com

Review

In Seven Psychopaths and his first full-length film, In Bruges, Irish playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh indulges a taste for hit-men thrillers rich in genre-conscious banter and splattery violence. The debt to Tarantino is obvious, but McDonagh’s kicky carnage has an element of blasphemyï¿½the characters (and their creator) defying a God that will surely send them to hell. His protagonist (Colin Farrell, superb) is an Irish screenwriter living in Hollywood and freeassociating a psycho-killer script while around him revolve an assortment of actual psychos telling their stories, the line between reality and fantasy so blurred that the blurring itself becomes the jokeï¿½ a brilliant one. Sam Rockwell kills as the hero’s loony tunes best friend, deliciously abetted by Christopher Walken as an aging, sad-sack dognapper. (Guest hipster psychos include Woody Harrelson, Harry Dean Stanton, and Tom Waits.) The trouble is that after an hour of going with the blood flow, McDonagh maroons his characters in the desert and the meta turns monotonous. Seven Psychopaths doesn’t jell, but it’s enough of a crowd-pleaser to make you worried about how pleased the crowd around you is. — David Edelstein