Seven Psychopaths
[youtube=http://youtu.be/5BFnITx4nXo]
Tagline: They Won’t Take Any Shih Tzu.
Mr. and Mrs. Friday Flicks remember Colin Farrell and writer/director Martin McDonagh’s previous collaboration, In Bruges, all too well, for we were in Bruges at the time it was being made, and still have the screaming sound of teenage girls ringing through our ears (thank goodness the movie was so enjoyable that it nearly made up for the shrieking).
The duo have teamed up again on Seven Psychopaths, though the destination has crossed the ocean to California. And in a similar vein to Argo, the world of film making plays a role. Farrell is Marty, a struggling Irish screenwriter, who just can’t make any headway with his script for Seven Psychopaths beyond the actual title. And so his best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell), who happens to run a dognapping racket – don’t worry, it will all make perfect sense – with Hans (Christopher Walken), attempts to cajole him out of his writer’s block with some surreal skits. That’s all well and good until a dog belonging to a gangster played by Woody Harrelson gets stolen. From here on in, if you will, the Shih Tzu hits the fan.
Seven Psychopaths seems to be getting close to five-star reviews. Variety gets the ball rolling but can’t fail to pass up the chance to slide in a slightly-barbed remark about McDonagh’s simplistic plot: “Ironically enough, the scribe’s apparent lack of any attempt to make a grand artistic statement could easily make this outing his most accessible project to date.” Empire is far more effusive in its praise for the director, concluding that he manages “a sleight of hand that much more experienced directors have struggled with and never pulled off as effectively as this.” And Entertainment Weekly is firmly in his corner, noting that “McDonagh has a fine time deconstructing movie genres in the SoCal sunshine,” even comparing him to the great Quentin Tarantino. You can see why: In so many ways, this movie seems like pulpy fiction.
LIST: Martin McDonagh: The Dark Master
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: A tough choice but if Roger Ebert says it’s going to win Best Picture, then Argo is good enough to be the Flicks Pick.