Se7en (1995)
The two-cops-that-have-opposite-personalities-yet-are-forced-to-be-partners is one of the most overused clichés in cinema. Whereas very few movies based on this idea succeed in being remembered (e.g. Lethal Weapon - 1987 - and Lethal Weapon 2 - 1989), most of them are forgotten right after a good night's sleep. Thanks in great part to an inspired script by Andrew Kevin Walker and a fantastic imagery by production designer Arthur Max and art director Gary Wissner, Se7en manages to be one of those few.
The movie revolves a round two cops, David Mills (Brad Pitt), who, aiming at advancing his career, had just requested to be transferred to the most dangerous district in town, and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), retiring in a week's time, training Mills to replace him. Together they will hunt a serial killer (Kevin Spacey*), who murders people he judges in violation of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. So far, nothing extraordinary plot-wise. But then, with still half an hour and two more sins to go (envy and wrath), the killer gives himself up. Through his lawyer, the killer promises to sign a full confession if he is allowed to take detectives Mills and Somerset to the final crime scene, where, he says, two more bodies will be found. The three of them then go to a secluded area in the desert. A van arrives. While Mills stays with the killer, Somerset approaches the van and is handed a box, discovering in it the head of Mills' wife the killer had cut off while trying to "play husband" with her. Because the killer envied Mills' life, he, the killer, deserved to die, and Mills, being then guilty of wrath, should be punished as well. By (understandably) not being able to contain his anger (uttering the now infamous "What's in the box?" line), Mills executes the killer, thus bringing the killer's work full circle.
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| William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) |
Morgan Freeman is fantastic (as usual) as Somerset, a well-read, level-headed man with seemingly heaps of wisdom to share. There is something unusual about Freeman's persona, about his way of speaking, that makes you want to ponder everything he says (making him hence a perfect casting choice for this role). Somerset no longer understands the the world around him, with so many senseless acts of violence being committed and people praising apathy as if it were a virtue, and that is why he decided to retire, he says. In a touching scene with Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow), Mills's wife, he explains how he nearly got married once, after he found out his girlfriend was pregnant: due to the awful things he saw as a detective, he could not cope with the fear of bringing a child into this world, ending up by pushing her away and, thus, I believe, cementing his pessimistic view on the future.
"I can tell you now that [...] I'm positive that I made the right decision. But there's not a day that passes that I don't wish that I had made a different choice."Hindsight can be a terrible thing.
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| David Mills (Brad Pitt) |
By being a handsome guy, Brad Pitt could very well have fallen into the trap of adding nothing but cheeky romantic comedies to his resume, like many before (and after) him. However, akin to Leonardo DiCaprio, he tends to judiciously choose the roles he plays, opting for more three-dimensional characters instead (Troy - 2004 -, obviously, being set aside). In Se7en, he plays the perfect counterpoint to Freeman's Somerset: an impulsive, shoot-first-ask-questions-later type of guy. Both of them work very diligently, but with different approaches: Somerset trying do unravel the killer's mind; and Mills focusing on puzzling out the crime scenes. While Somerset is known by all the night guards in the public library, Mills feels more at ease with "for dummies" versions of the books that might have inspired the killer. Whereas Somerset is a loner, Mills has a wife he loves very much, and, perhaps because of that, he is not at all as pessimistic about the future as Somerset professes to be. I wonder whether Mills changes his mind by the end of the movie...
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| The killer (Kevin Spacey*) |
The third main character, the killer himself, is played very slyly by Kevin Spacey. While not as magnetic as Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, he surely makes himself noticed, despite having roughly half an hour of screen time. Always with an expressionless face, talking in a monotone voice, he only loses composure when Mills states he had been killing innocent people all along: after all, from the killer's point of view, he had merely been doing "God's good work" (as wittily put by Somerset), punishing guilty people the society would or could not (Dexter, anyone?). The true intent of the movie, a harsh criticism the the status quo, is then beautifully exposed in the killer's response to that statement (I won't post the killer's monologue here, as it would take away from the power of watching it being performed by Kevin Spacey). Furthermore, no one seems to notice (or care about) a man covered in blood leaving a cab and entering the police office, thus reinforcing Somerset's view that apathy, "minding one's own business", is the norm in current society.
The set design in the movie is so hellishly breathtaking one might consider it as its fourth main character. As in The Omen (1976), every location is painstakingly assembled so that the characters would seem to exist inside a perpetual nightmare, with director David Fincher making sure we are always looking at exactly where he wants us to and feeling exactly what he wants us to. Take for instance the Sloth crime scene. Fincher first lets us see the SWAT team breaking into the dreary apartment, then walking around it while dodging hundreds of air fresheners hanging from the ceiling. Thanks to Darius Khondji's cinematography, our eyes are naturally drawn to the spots at which their flashlights point, so, when the entire team focuses on the interior of the same filthy bedroom, we instinctively share their anticipation. They slowly enter the room, then, gazing at someone lying on a bed, covered by a thin sheet, "sloth" written in feces on the wall. When the sheet is removed, all men gag due both to the partially rotten person on display and to its stench. While the policemen examine the crime scene, we are shown the dryness of the victim's blister-ridden, motionless body in excruciating closeups (kudos to the make-up department). As a result, the tense atmosphere from before turns into one of disgust at the sight we are made to watch, culminating in one of the most effective jump scares I can think of! It's a shame this technique has lost its punch nowadays, due to its overuse by incompetent directors/screenwriters who are only interested in cheap scares...
Even in moments when the characters are not at crime scenes, the "normal" locations in the movie also have some odd element that stands out, thus reinforcing the idea of never-ending nightmare. Outdoors, a gray sky is always pouring with rain, as if nature was constantly trying to wash away the violence inherent to human nature from the gritty, monochromatic streets of the city. Indoors, Somerset kills time in his apartment by throwing knifes against a dartboard; in Mills's, at every five minutes a train would pass by, making the whole place shake as if in an earthquake. And then there is the ending, which sets us up with a false sense of security (the killer handcuffed in the backseat of Miller and Somerset's police car, the three of them driving under a clear, blue sky) just to bewilder us with the killer's true intentions, a bad dream from which Mills certainly wishes he could wake up.
Furthermore, the set design for the murderer's house is absolutely astonishing: dark and gloomy, like the movie itself, filled with religious imagery, empty aspirin bottles and trophies from his crimes. The same lighting technique employed in the Sloth crime scene is used once more, making flashlights almost literally pierce through the all-encompassing murkiness that fills the place. While Somerset read an excerpt of one of the killer's hundreds of journals, offering a glimpse into what might be the inner workings of his mind, I couldn't help but think of the haunting final monologue by Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre), the killer in Fritz Lang's M (1931). While on that subject, the opening credits by Kyle Cooper deserve a special mention, as he was able to masterfully convey the fragmented, chaotic psyche of the religion-obsessed murderer, thereby setting the tone for the entire movie.
David Fincher deserves credit not only for directing Se7en as moody neo-noir, but also for saving it from being just another cliché-ridden serial killer movie. As the story goes, the producers at New Line Cinema had no intention of filming Andrew Kevin Walker's original script, rewriting it completely as a bland, by-the-books thriller. Unfortunately (for them), they ended up sending Fincher the original draft of the story, which Fincher loved. After having learned his lesson about dealing with movie industry executives due to them butchering his vision for Alien 3 (1992), Fincher sided Pitt and Freeman to defend Walker's original draft... and the rest is movie history.
Summarizing it:Even in moments when the characters are not at crime scenes, the "normal" locations in the movie also have some odd element that stands out, thus reinforcing the idea of never-ending nightmare. Outdoors, a gray sky is always pouring with rain, as if nature was constantly trying to wash away the violence inherent to human nature from the gritty, monochromatic streets of the city. Indoors, Somerset kills time in his apartment by throwing knifes against a dartboard; in Mills's, at every five minutes a train would pass by, making the whole place shake as if in an earthquake. And then there is the ending, which sets us up with a false sense of security (the killer handcuffed in the backseat of Miller and Somerset's police car, the three of them driving under a clear, blue sky) just to bewilder us with the killer's true intentions, a bad dream from which Mills certainly wishes he could wake up.
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| Mills inside the killer's apartment |
David Fincher deserves credit not only for directing Se7en as moody neo-noir, but also for saving it from being just another cliché-ridden serial killer movie. As the story goes, the producers at New Line Cinema had no intention of filming Andrew Kevin Walker's original script, rewriting it completely as a bland, by-the-books thriller. Unfortunately (for them), they ended up sending Fincher the original draft of the story, which Fincher loved. After having learned his lesson about dealing with movie industry executives due to them butchering his vision for Alien 3 (1992), Fincher sided Pitt and Freeman to defend Walker's original draft... and the rest is movie history.
| Liked | Didn't like |
|---|---|
| The ending, nearly ruined by the producers | Can't think of anything |
| The set design is nightmarishly amazing |
Arguably one of the most brilliant opening credits in the history of cinema:
Great Movie review by Roger Ebert here.
If you liked this movie, then maybe try watching John McNaughton's Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), and Joon-ho Bong's Memories Of Murder (2003), as well as, obviously, Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of The Lambs (1991).
* Ebert did not disclose the name of the actor who played the serial killer, but come on! It's a 20-year-old movie!
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