- Upon recently rewatching David Fincher's Se7en, I was struck by the wonderful balance of sensationalism and patience contained within this film. How many movies can you think of that deal with comparably grotesque and lurid subject matters at such a leisurely pace? Before seeing Se7en, I would have guessed that any movie depicting horrendous murders arranged around the biblical seven deadly sins would necessarily be either an exercise in accidental comedy or a mindless house of horrors. I certainly never anticipated a suspense film as meticulously constructed, thoughtful, and surprising as this one.
- The opening credits, a rapidly cut series of half-glimpses into the life of a homicidal hobbyist, introduce a serial killer who spends most of the film just offscreen. This smart choice allows the narrative to focus instead on the murderer's handiwork as investigated by veteran police detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and his new partner David Mills (Brad Pitt). To be clear, this is not a buddy-cop situation. Somerset is an aloof old hermit ready to retire and Mills is an over-enthusiastic attention-deficit type. The best illustration of their different approaches to life arrives when Somerset wields his police privilege to enter a cavernous library after hours, as we gather he often does, while Mills quickly skims Cliff's Notes in a police cruiser. All that the men appear to share in common are the gentle affection of Mills' wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the horrid details of their murder case.
- About those details. It turns out that the seven deadly sins make for some pretty startling murder scenes. The most gruesome involve a glutton forced to eat himself to death, a sloth forcibly confined to his bed for a year, and a lusty woman made to...well, you get the picture. To say that there are some memorably explicit situations is an understatement, but such a description is also misleading because the film's dark palette and clever shot composition keep a lot of the details hovering just at the edge of specification. But then, just when the audience thinks it understands the pattern, the killer turns himself in. A literal John Doe (Kevin Spacey), he waltzes into the police station covered in blood and confesses despite the fact that the film is still half an hour and two deadly sins short of ending. At this point, the audience likely joins with the police in wondering what happens next.
- In fact, the film's final, brilliant punchline is delivered after so deliberate a buildup that there is a very real risk of disappointment if the big surprise doesn't pay off. But then the audience finds out what's in the box, a detail that nobody who has ever seen the film is likely to forget. It's a shock in the tradition of Psycho, filmed in a locale reminiscent of the crop-dusting scene from North by Northwest, and handled nearly as deftly as even The Master of Suspense himself might have done. The film defies simple expectations at all turns, making it an intriguing riddle very much worth solving. Instead of taking place in New York or Los Angeles, the main setting is a faceless city where it always rains and the sounds of humanity strain in from all sides. Instead of giving one of its main characters a reason to wield a switchblade, the film employs the knife as character development rather than major plot point. The film's final quote captures its strange theme best: "'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part."
- Also starring Richard Roundtree, R. Lee Ermey, and John C. McGinley!
