Seven (Movie Review)

If you are struggling to find what to watch on Netflix, take a stab at Se7en (Seven), a crime thriller about two detectives (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) trying to stop a serial killer, who inflicts torture upon his victims according to the seven deadly sins. This film is a cult classic for many reasons, but its probably most remembered for its ending.

What's in the box?! Image provided by spookysean.com

What's inside that box indeed? The last 10 minutes of the movie is what really staples it as memorable. The entire build up of juxtaposing the speed of cars and helicopters with the almost monotoned-way that Pitt, Freeman, and another actor who I won't mention for the sake of the plot, converse back and forth, ratchets up the film's tension. You feel it tightening in your stomach and you can sense something awful is about to happen.

A lot happened in the mid-90s. While I was stuck watching Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, barely able to sit through a 27 min cartoon, adults were actually going to theatres and sitting down for this impressive 2-hr thriller.

The majors themes of this film is self-indulgence and our growing apathy for our urbanized existence. The Saw movie series must of been inspired by the creative way the film's antagonist killed his victims. We never see a victim's demise, just the results...and at times, some pretty horrific results. One scene caught me totally off guard.

What stands out the most for me is the film's pacing. It jumps from slow to fast many times. The duality of the film mirrors the speed at which cities move. Fast and slow. As quick as a bullet or as steady as a metronome. Just notice the difference at how Detective Somerset (Freeman) and Detective Mills (Pitt) speak and talk to others. One detective is almost graceful and oozing film noir and the other is rather brash and curses like ala NYPD Blue.

The film is filled with this analogy.

At the start, I almost fell asleep. The bass in Morgan Freeman's voice was the equivalent of listening to ambiance music. He could put a baby to sleep. The opening moments take its time to build and introduce characters. Then we get a bit of horror. Then back to character building. There's even a montage with classical music, quite possibly the slowest music known to man. Then another death scene. Then it's back to having dinner with the family and the detectives, which is broken up often by the trembling of a passing train. Just when you think everyone completely forgot about the killer, they get a lead and we get another death scene.

There's even an interrogation scene where one witness is nearly uncomfortably spastic and traumatized and the other is deviously cool. This scene is in near split screen as the detectives are interrogating them in side by side rooms.

This pattern continues on an on all the way to its classic horror movie ending.

The pacing of this film would be it's drawback for me. Maybe in our era of fast moving dramas I've now developed a sinful impatience, BUT because of the film's pace, we get too much exposition and we tend to miss plot holes. The biggest of them all being the ending. The serial killer has this grande scheme that just doesn't fit (to me at least) with the trail of gore he has trekked. We never see whats in the box, despite being at all the crime scenes and capturing all its bloody details. The ending is almost bloodless.

There's these moments where the detectives are sitting and waiting and the viewers just waits with them for the story to continue. It's like taking a coffee break.

Scenes like Detective Mills' girlfriend (Paltrow) having lunch with Detective Somerset feel like fillers, just to introduce more plot points.

Viewers on Netflix gave this film 5 stars. A rare feat to find among the plethora of B-list horrors in the Netflix catalog. I rated it 3 out of 5 stars. I liked the film, but there were areas that should've been cut to create a more cohesive product.