Review: Seven Psychopaths

Colin Farrell plays a boozing, idiot writer who has come up with a great title: ‘Seven Psychopaths’. And that’s about it. Oh, it’s going to be a pacifist story, too (!). He’s about to get some up close and personal inspiration, though, and not just because he has placed an ad in the paper for psychos to sell their stories to him (An idea possibly born out of idiocy or alcohol, maybe both). Farrell’s idiotic unemployed actor friend Sam Rockwell has a dog-napping/reward grabbing scam going with Christopher Walken, whose wife is in the hospital with cancer. They kidnap the Shih Tzu (unknowingly the pride and joy) of psycho gangster Woody Harrelson, who is looking for blood. Michael Pitt appears in the amusing opening scene as a would-be hitman, Abbie Cornish plays Farrell’s fed-up girlfriend, Tom Waits and Harry Dean Stanton play colourful psychopaths (the former a killer of other killers), Olga Kurylenko plays Harrelson’s girl, Gabourey Sidibe plays a woman who gets on the wrong side of Harrelson, and ubiquitous character actor Zjelko Ivanek (is there any TV show or movie he’s not in?) plays Harrelson’s right-hand man. Long Nguyen plays a possibly fictitious Viet Cong soldier whose family tragedy at Mi Lai inspires him to dress as a priest and exact bloody revenge in the US!

 

Writer/director Martin McDonagh follows up his hilarious debut “In Bruges” with another amusing black comedy from 2012. With McDonagh at the helm and a cast that includes Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, and Harry Dean Stanton, I knew this would be fun, and it doesn’t disappoint. The best way I can describe it is to call it the kind of thing Quentin Tarantino might dream of at night, or to call it the film the “Boondock Saints” films tried and failed to be. It’s truly insane stuff. Maybe not quite psychopathic, but definitely insane, as McDonagh seems to have a real aptitude and weird affection for idiot crims. And boy are they ever idiots, especially the characters played by Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson (the latter being cute casting as a ‘psychopath’ when you think about it). I may have hated “Natural Born Killers”, but Harrelson is a genuinely talented, if erratic actor who is good here, and even a little menacing. Wow, “Cheers” really does seem a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? Sam Rockwell is probably nothing like his scummy, shifty screen persona, but he plays unlikeable douchebags effortlessly. How much of a douchebag is he in this film? He openly criticises Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophies, that’s how much. Colin Farrell is similarly well-cast as a drunken Irish tool, in a race to see who can be the bigger douchebag. Farrell certainly makes for an utterly convincing idiot, I love how his writer character goes from creating a Buddhist psycho to an Amish Psycho...no, let’s make him a Quaker instead. And then the Amish guy turns out to be a cigarette-smoking, vengeance driven guy, which is simply marvellous. Even funnier is the story of the Vietnamese guy, that would be awfully offensive if it didn’t sound genuinely plausible as the kind of back-story you’d get in a cheesy, reactionary, Vietnam-themed 80s action movie. And it’s truly hilarious. Walken probably plays the least comedic role in the film, but is good here in what is basically one of the few ‘good guy’ roles in the film (Yes he is a dog-napper and thief, but not without motive, if not excuse). His first scene is a hoot though, with the dog-nabbing, money-making scheme he and Rockwell have going being quite funny. Look out for a very funny and very weird appearance by Tom Waits, who sounds like a latter day Nick Nolte (or is it the other way around perhaps?) and has a stupidly hilarious flashback to his criminal past as a Starkweather/Fugate-esque serial murderer. They even kill the bunny-loving Zodiac killer! Those poor bunnies are orphans, now.

 

Ruthlessly violent (lovely head splatter, I must say), blackly humorous, incredibly unusual, and hard not to like. I mean, here’s likely the only film you’ll find where someone actually follows the ‘come alone’ directive, whilst another guy refuses a ‘stop or I’ll shoot!’ request. Those never happen. Good stuff.

 

Rating: B-