‘Seven Psychopaths’ is one of those brilliant crime movies that nobody will see… on the big screen, at least. Imagine ‘Snatch’ set in the U.S. with a huge array of batshit crazy characters. Just about everyone in the film is some sort of psychopath, and even those that aren’t can arguably be considered nuts for hanging around with the lot of them.
If you enjoyed Guy Ritchie’s crime films like ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels‘, ‘Snatch‘ and ‘RockNRolla‘, then you’ll love ‘Seven Psychopaths’. Remove the tough-as-nails, intelligent criminals from Ritchie’s films, replace them with nutbags and – BLAMMO – you’ve got ‘Seven Psychopaths’.
If there’s a lead in this ensemble flick, it’s Colin Farrell. Sort of like ‘Adaptation‘, he plays a fictional version of the film’s actual writer and director, Martin McDonagh (of ‘In Bruges‘ fame). Known as “Marty,” Farrell’s character is having a difficult time writing his new screenplay, entitled ‘Seven Psychopaths’. On paper, all that Marty has is a title – but in his mind, he’s creating a grand scale masterpiece. His intent is to write a screenplay about people who do awful things and come to huge life-changing experiences by the end. The only problem is that he can’t create the seven essential characters to carry the story. That’s where Sam Rockwell comes in.
You know how most down-and-out actors in L.A. get jobs waiting tables (or something like that)? Well, Marty’s best friend Billy (Rockwell) has established a lucrative little racket of his own. Billy hangs out in a dog park in La Brea. When their wealthy owners aren’t looking, he steals dogs, only to return them a few days later and collect the rewards. Who knows how long he and his partner Hans (Christopher Walken) have been doing this?
When Billy creates a unique and worthy psychopath for Marty’s screenplay, Marty brings him on as a co-writer, not knowing that Billy’s “day job” is about to change everything. You see, Billy and Hans just stole the Shih Tzu of an off-his-rocker gangster (Woody Harrelson), a crime lord so crazy that he’s willing to kill anyone and anything that keep him from his little poochie.
What ensues is pure genius. In an attempt to create seven psychopathic characters for his fictional screenplay, Marty gets dragged into an unbelievable scenario that just might contain all seven of the psychopaths that he’s been looking for all along. Occasionally bouncing in and out of the world of Marty’s screenplay, ‘Seven Psychopaths’ is an exhilarating, hilarious and tense flick worth racing out to see. While I doubt that the movie will do much business at the box office, I’m certain that it will become a cult classic by those who give it a chance.
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