Seven Psychopaths

Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s sophomore effort isn't nearly as good as his 2008 debut In Bruges, not to mention his stage work, but it delivers on what it is: a “meta movie” about a screenwriter named Martin with an idea for a cool title - “Seven Psychopaths.” From this shaky starting point, McDonagh goes on to deconstruct the type of film that he and most of his contemporaries make: violent movies about men with guns.  I normally have little tolerance for films about themselves.  They can never really sustain the length of a feature without falling apart, running out of ideas, or just being awful from start to finish (like Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation). But Seven Psychopaths held my interest, primarily because it's so funny and well-acted.  Although each of these actors has lots of experience in the types of roles McDonagh wants to take apart and examine, their performances still manage to surprise and charm.

Worthy of special mention are Sam Rockwell, who is impressively restrained; Tom Waits, in a small but winning part; and Christopher Walken, who delivers line after line in unexpectedly humorous ways--a feat that is especially astonishing considering how exhaustively Walken has been imitated and satirized.  The one weak link is Woody Harrellson.  By now, he seems to have shown us all the tricks in his acting bag, and it doesn't help that his character here is a much less interesting version of the lead in McDonagh’s play The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Between Seven Psychopaths, The Hunger Games and Rampart, I’m getting pretty tired of seeing Harrellson onscreen. However, one week link does not break the chain of charms and surprises provided by the rest of the cast. Seven Psychopaths is more than just a title looking for a film - it’s just not a whole lot more.