Se7en (1995)

This movie is very... interesting. The first hour of the movie starts off slowly, with quite a few scenes of conversation, with the occasional murder scene thrown in. The slow start struggles to hold your attention, but if you're intent on watching it, (as i was), or a fan of tension filled dramas, the first hour isn't terribly boring. The background of the two main characters, detectives David Mills (Brad Pitt) and William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), is very effectively told in a timely manner. They don't dwell on the background, which is in my opinion a very good thing, however i think slightly more detail would have helped understand the characters.

The idea of this movie seems quite simple: an obviously insane man, (John Doe, as he is referred to, played by Kevin Spacey), goes around an unnamed city, (in which it is almost constantly raining, which must get really annoying) gruesomely killing citizens who have 'violated' the seven deadly sins; gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, and lust. The two detectives, played by Pitt and Freeman, follow his hints, and use some... "not so ethical" methods to find the killer, such as paying off a member of the FBI, which supposedly keeps track of every book you check out of libraries, to find a suspect by checking for people who have checked out books concerning the seven deadly sins. Throughout the movie, they actually encounter the killer on a couple of occasions, one of which they had not idea they were face to face with a man who had tortured and/or slaughtered three people. About an hour into the film, detective Mills chases down the suspect after he shot at Somerset and Mills. An intense chase scene follows, running through hallways of two different floors of an apartment building, through an apartment, out a window, around some heating/cooling equipment, into another building, off a balcony, onto the fire escapes, down onto the street and into an alley, and finally the killer gets the upper hand on Mills in said alley, and holds a gun to his head, but Somerset bursts in just in time to scare the killer off. The killer gets away, but it isn't the last you see of him.

The ending has quite a twist, and i would hate to spoil it for anyone wanting to see this movie. Let's just say there are seven victims of all seven deadly sins, and six of them are extraordinarily gruesome and disgusting, yet prove the killers point effectively, which is this: this world is so horribly corrupted, we go through every day ignoring people that violate what were once considered the worst sins one could commit.

Morgan Freeman ends the movie with a quote about a famous author:

"Ernest Hemingway once said: "this world is a fine one, and it is worth fighting for." I agree with the second part."

The acting in this movie is extremely good, but Brad Pitt wasn't custom made for this role. Pitt is an excellent actor, however i am not a die-hard fan of his work. He has very good movies, such as "Fight Club" (1999), which is one of my all time favorites, and "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), but i am not going to go rent a movie only because Pitt is the main character. He doesn't do a fantastic job of expressing emotion, except anger, he's good at that one. But i feel they could have picked a better actor, but Pitt was pretty good. Morgan Freeman, however, was perfect. His character is a nonchalant, brave, calm, yet slightly troubled retiring detective, which is the role Freeman was born for. His unexpected laugh catches you off guard because of his serious demeanor throughout, and his performance was terrific. Kevin Spacey plays his role well, although the role was not a very in-depth or difficult one. He succeeds in capturing the creepiness of his character, and is scarily calm for having murdered six people.

Overall, very good movie. Not an action packed by any means, but still excellent. As a drama, fantastic, with some over the top murder scenes and great chase scene or two, it will satisfy any movie buff, but would probably not satisfy someone who is looking for something with a lot of action and so forth.

Overall Rating: 7.4 out of 10.0

Categories: "Intelligent Man", "Enjoyable Drama", and "That Amount of Violence Probably Isn't Necessary"