Seven Psychopaths

Following up In Bruges was never going to be an easy task for writer/director Martin McDonagh, after coming seemingly out of nowhere his debut film became something of a deserved cult hit, mixing black humour and a surprisingly touching story of a pair of mismatched hitmen hiding out in Bruges. In Seven Psychopaths McDonagh’s preoccupation with violence remains, though the film itself is a very different beast tonally to its predecessor. Lacking the deeper emotional undercurrents of Bruges, Psychopaths instead delves deep into meta-commentary regarding the notion of violence in movies and our collective enjoyment of it. Colin Farrell stars again, this time as Marty, a struggling screenwriter with a premise for a new film (called Seven Psychopaths) but not much more. His best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is a dog-napper, who runs a scam alongside Christopher Walken’s Hans, who uses the money to support his cancer-ridden wife in hospital.

But, following the accidental theft of a dog belonging to renowned gangster Charlie (Woody Harrelson) things start to get out of control as the psychopaths Marty seems so interested in for his proposed script start impacting on his life. There’s a certain unreality here that McDonagh plays up far more than he has done previously, the almost cartoonish violence and hyper saturated LA locations suit the larger than life characters that populate the film, Rockwell and Walken are the stand-out performances, the former initially seeming to fill his usual role as the unhinged outsider, only to have the character become something much more interesting and deranged by the end of the film. Walken embodies Hans with a lifetime’s experience with nary a word, and his stoic and deadpan sensibility give the film its emotional core, what of it there is. Farrell does a great turn embodying the cliché’s alcoholic Irish writer with pathos and his trademark bewilderment, and Tom Waits needs only two scenes to risk stealing the film, playing one of the titular psychopaths who stops by for some tea.

Structurally interesting the film starts at a pace and then slows towards the end, finally giving the characters and ideas time to breathe. Whilst it is fairly constantly entertaining and engaging, there is a certain surface level enjoyment that pervades throughout. The conceit of having characters discuss the clichés of cinematic shootouts and corny dialogue, whilst participating in the same scenarios themselves, has potential but never quite feels fully realised. The act of pointing out your own flaws never works as a way to excuse them; an aside regarding Marty’s script’s lack of female characters, and its objectification of women feels knowing, until you realise that the film itself suffers from this same issue, and no effort is made after the fact to correct this. 

It’s perhaps the curse of trying to be too knowing and ironic, but the lack of empathy hurts the film in the long run. It’s often very, very funny as well as shocking and unexpected, but ultimately somewhat hollow. Marty’s dilemma throughout the film is how to make a film about psychopaths that is somehow uplifting and promotes peace, if McDonagh had managed to solve this conundrum then the film may have had something to say. As it is, it remains a somewhat glib but nonetheless enjoyable romp but one that never quite gels into a cohesive whole.