Country: United States
Genre: Drama/Horror
Director: David Fincher
Year: 1995
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
Seven is one of those rare scripts that actually improved during the development process. I read an early draft of the script by Andrew Kevin Walker and it was an obvious hatchet job on Christian fundamentalists. The finished product is actually quite a bit more subtle.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Seven starts out with a very strong credit sequence, with visuals that feel diseased and music by Nine Inch Nails to match. In fact, you think “These guys are overselling how creepy the movie is.” If only. My suspicions were deepened by the piling on of grotesque details in the ritualistic serial killings. In one, there are rows and rows of soup cans with the labels facing outwards, as if Andy Warhol had art directed the crime scene. The details of the crimes, along with the dim lighting and fog effects, seem designed to elicit a reaction of “Ewww.” This isn’t horror, this is being grossed out.
But wait, Seven is just getting started. As the murders progress, the crime scenes gradually accrue more spiritual and philisophical significance. There is one excellent shock in a scene dominated by the air fresheners that commonly hang on the rearview mirror of new cars — hundreds of tree shaped air fresheners. And then, an hour into the film, the killer does something so unexpected that my brain almost seized up as I struggled to comprehend what the filmmakers were up to.
That’s when Seven really picks up. In one of the most riveting dialog sequences in the history of film, the killer (the actor will remain unnamed) explains to detectives William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and David Mills (Brad Pitt) the madness behind his methods. The scary part is how sensible he sounds. It reminds me a little of some of the writings of Charles Manson, another nut with the ability to sound reasonable. Seven culminates in a battle for the soul of a human being, with the weapons being a gun, words, and the mind. Words are more powerful than the gun, and the mind most powerful of all.
The actor who plays the killer has the role of his life, Morgan Freeman is superb as the kind and wise Detective Somerset, Gwynneth Paltrow has never been better, and Brad Pitt has a scene in which his character is forced to confront his anger management issues that will blow you away.
A lot of credit has to go to director David Fincher as well. True, he overplays the grotesquerie at the beginning of the movie. He also miscalculates, along with the art director, on how the apartment of the killer would look. Instead of a festering flophouse, it should look like a monk’s cell. But it’s hard to fault the atmosphere of dread that takes over the film after the half hour mark. Best of all, Fincher’s direction of the climactic scenes is as pitiless as the noonday sun that leaves the characters nowhere to hide.
For the fabulous ending of Seven, we have Brad Pitt to thank. He refused to make Seven unless the ending was intact, resulting in the greatest sucker punch to the gut ending of all time. If you’re anything like me, you’ll walk away from Seven profoundly effected, sickened, elated, and feeling like you need to take a long, hot shower.
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