Title: Se7en
Directed by: David Fincher
Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker
Year: 1995
I really like films or books with strong themes borrowed from exterior sources, literary or otherwise, so it should come as no surprise that I’m interested in a film focusing on a man being inspired by the seven deadly sins to find exquisite ways to kill his victims. Because of this structure, the opening half of the story is quite predictable, with detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) about to retire, and his replacement Mills (Brad Pitt) investigating one crime scene after another. The murderer’s modus operandi indicates a twisted genius, so the real question is of course not what is going to happen, but how..
This film is pretty good, but for once, I’ll start this part of the review with what I don’t like: the beginning is too long and even though the ending is good, it doesn’t quite compensate for a slow start. The theme and the creativity involved in the first few murder cases are interesting enough to keep my interest about halfway through this section of the movie, but after that, when I know what to expect from each scene, Se7en is simply an average detective movie (a genre I don’t fancy). Sure, the directing and acting is good, but the overall impression here is still average, far from brilliant.
This changes towards the end, though. It is only natural to speculate how the film will end, because the viewer knows which deadly sins are still left to play with and what the circumstances are like. Still, I didn’t manage to figure it out ahead of time and the ending is really quite good.
Conclusively, this is a film which has everything, but still manages to slow down too much in the middle to be truly great. The four snails I have decided to give it are a credit to the directing, story and acting, but Se7en still contains too much averageness to go beyond this.
