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Seven Psychopaths

(2012) *** R
109 min. CBS Films. Director: Martin McDonagh. Cast: Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish.

/content/films/4425/1.jpgJust what is that non-violent people get out of violent stories? Possibly a deeper understanding of the roots of violence where it is found, but more likely a kind of vicarious thrill, a holiday from civility and an indulgence in primal bad behavior. By asking the question, Seven Psychopaths gives itself a bit more heft than, say, the aptly named The Expendables.


Rightly panicked, the three stooges hightail it to Joshua Tree National Park, where their ineptitude strands them even as doom approaches. Call it "Waiting, with Guns, for Godot": faced with the absurdity of their situation, the three men talk and talk to stave off the inevitability of the existential void.
And so the gleefully violent, comically profane Seven Psychopaths represents a sort of evolutionary step from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, but without that picture's coked-up energy and propulsive narrative drive. McDonagh gets bogged down in the desert, where Hans' observation about psychopaths ("They get kind of tiresome after all, don't you think?") becomes something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.


The picture is smart enough to work on multiple levels: as a witty salute to masculine '70s cinema ("Marty" can stand for Marty Scorsese as well as Martin McDonagh), as a deconstruction of same (Rockwell's "Bickle," alluding to De Niro's psychopath in Scorsese's Taxi Driver, symbolically embodies the eager violence Marty needs for a commercially successful script), and as an existential consideration of the role of self-expression in ascribing meaning to life, including the question of artistic "responsibility."

This potentially irritating playfulness works because of likeable performances from the central trio of actors. Farrell, Rockwell, and Walken play off their own screen personas while reminding us of their extensive comic capabilities. Accompanied by the empathetic funereal strains of customary Coen Brothers composer Carter Burwell, these men make beautiful music out of the mortal fear of living to die.

[This review first appeared in Palo Alto Weekly.]

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