Time: 110 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic violence, sex scenes and offensive language
Cast:
Colin Farrell as Marty
Sam Rockwell as Billy
Woody Harrelson as Charlie
Christopher Walken as Hans
Tom Waits as Zachariach
Abbi Cornish as Kaya
Olga Kurylenko as Angela
Director: Martin McDonagh

Marty Faranan (Colin Farrell) is a struggling screenwriter who involuntarily becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends Billy Bickle (Sam Rockwell) and Hans Kieslowski (Christopher Walken) kidnap a beloved Shih Tzu from Charlie Costello (Woody Harrelson) – who is a gangster.

Martin McDonagh is a writer and director to be watched. In film, he has been on a roll, first releasing the Oscar winning short film Six Shooter, before moving onto In Bruges, a fantastic black comedy and he has down it again with Seven Psychopaths. Like In Bruges, it is a dark comedy but it is somehow bigger than its predecessor. I don’t know if it is better than In Bruges but it is very close to the level of greatness.

One of the things I like about this movie is that the main character’s ideas for writing psychopaths come from mostly the people around him. This movie is bigger than In Bruges, where as that movie mostly took place in Bruges, Seven Psychopaths take place in multiple places and has more characters that it focuses on. One of the only flaws I could find in this movie it that is lacked some character development. There isn’t as much character development as In Bruges but in this movie I didn’t mind it that much. Also like with In Bruges, it contains Tarantino violence. Tarantino violence involves is a lot of blood that has been exaggerated – so note that this movie is probably not for the faint of heart. With In Bruges, with the exception of a couple scenes, the violence mostly took place in the second half and was mostly used in serious situations. Here, there is more of it but it mostly is used for comedy. That’s also one thing that I’ve noticed, In Bruges seems to have 60% drama and 40% comedy, where as with Seven Psychopaths, the movie has about 40% drama and 60% comedy. Martin McDonagh somehow manages to pull it off. If I was asked which movie out of both of them was the most fun, I’d probably say Seven Psychopaths.

All of the actors do a great job, the two stand outs however are Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell. Christopher Walken is always fun to watch but in this movie he’s not just parodying himself. He is great and has many classic, priceless scenes. The same can be said for Sam Rockwell. This is his best performance in years and is absolutely hilarious. For me, the best scene he’s in involves a camp fire. All the actors had brilliant comedic timing and played off each other really well. Each one of them has their moment to shine to show off their talents in this movie.

The cinematography is good as it was with In Bruges and like I said above, this film takes place in more than one place. The cinematographers really make great use of the locations. One thing I have noticed with the cinematography though that is different is the tone; In Bruges had a darker look while this movie seems to have a brighter look to it. The soundtrack has compositions from Carter Burwell but also features some other songs that fit in very well with many scenes in the movie.

Martin McDonagh’s follow up to In Bruges really proves that he is a great writer and director. From watching his two movies alone, I’m very excited to see what he does in the future. Because of his writing and the cast’s acting this film manages to be one of my favourite movies, along with In Bruges. Like its predecessor, Seven Psychopaths was a big surprise and should be seen if you liked In Bruges.