Following his Academy Award-winning short Film Six Shooter and illustrious career as playwright, McDonagh made a tremendous impact with In Bruges, a fresh and original exploration of a crime-of-errors. The Anglo-Irish McDonagh, who lives in London, is considered one of the best Irish playwrights of his generation and not only excels as a storyteller, but knows how to bring the story to life.
With Seven Psychopaths crime has never been zanier as McDonagh's imagination runs completely wild in this blood- drenched black comedy.
Colin Farrell reunites with McDonagh and is in top form as a writer who commits the ultimate crime: writing a screenplay with a catchy title, but not having any clue what the story is about. When his buddy (Sam Rockwell at his best) places an ad in a newspaper calling on all psychopaths to call the uninspired screenwriter and share their psycho tales, it unleashes hell. Then there's Billy, the beloved Shih Tzu pooch of a psychopathic gangster who gets dognapped and causes a hellish nightmare to explode in an absurd farce that totally unravels seven seemingly normal, but totally off-the-wall characters, and sets off a series of bizarre events. If all of this sounds crazy, it most definitely is and the madness of Seven Psychopaths is guaranteed to become a cult classic.
If you look at the definition of a psychopath - a person afflicted with a personality disorder characterised by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts - the characters in Seven Psychopaths embrace this description with kindness, respect and dignity. They are full-blooded loonies who are like time bombs waiting to explode, but equally endearing, compassionate and adorable.
This makes Seven Psychopaths a captivating experience; its provocative nature challenges its audience to feel something for someone you might fear and avoid to make contact with at all costs. It's not simply a crazy story about crazy people, but a well-made and thoughtful film that is an immensely enjoyable journey into the crazy things we love to death. It is a film that could easily fall apart at the seams, but McDonagh's masterful manipulation of word and image, armed with a heavenly cast that turns every moment into a thrilling experience, makes Seven Psychopaths a film you will most definitely never forget.
Christopher Walken is delightful as the most unlikely psychopath you will ever encounter, a psychopath who refutes all violence. There is a fantastic synergy between Walken and McDonagh; the two previously teamed on McDonagh's play A Behanding In Spokane, which garnered Walken a Tony nomination and also starred Woody Harrelson. Harrelson is equally unforgettable in Seven Psychopaths, perfectly cast as the one with issues, and the one who absolute loves his guns. Tom Waits, who plays the psychopath with the bunny is also another reason to see this great film.
The innocent strangers you encounter when leaving the cinema will never be the same again; the film shows that you most definitely cannot judge a book by its cover and that although you might trust your closest friend with your darkest secrets, its safest to keep it all locked away in your imagination and let the story run wild in your own mindscape.
Seven Psychopaths is a dark-and-brooding killer comedy that provides first-rate entertainment and ideal escapism. Madness has never been so much fun as in this insanely hilarious and totally wacky adventure that turns the dark side of human nature inside out.
Producer Graham Broadbent (In Bruges, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) remembers the moment McDonagh approached him with the Seven Psychopaths script. "It was a great read, a wonderful piece of writing - original and extraordinary. It had a rich mix of humour, humanity and danger. Martin makes the reader walk a tightrope. I think that's the smart element in this script - it constantly subverts where you think it's going to go. Martin will play a different card just when you think you know where it's going."
As for the juxtaposition of humour with darker elements, McDonagh is no stranger to meshing the two. "My humour is leavened with a little bit of darkness, but the trick is never to let the darkness weigh the humour down," he noted. "And I try to put a lot of humanity in my scripts. I think this one has a good amount of tenderness and is a big human story at its heart ... it's really about friendship." With seven distinct performances on the agenda, the challenge here would be to have a firm grip on what exactly defines a psychopath - a challenge indeed given, as McDonagh explained: "Some of the characters have elements of the psychopathic to them, but at the same time they don't. I guess psychopathy is in the eye of the beholder in some ways. It's a fun puzzle to play with, who is and who isn't a psychopath in this movie."
The comedy's protagonist just happens to be a screenwriter named Martin who is struggling with contradictory perspectives. Autobiographical? "Let's just say I throw a good deal of my truth into the mix along with things that are 100% false."
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