1derful

My favorite of director David Fincher's films is Seven. (Or, as it's officially styled, Se7en -- is that pronounced "Sesevenen?") But in the crucible of Top 100 Movie list-making, I recently decided to revisit the film. Just how much do I like it? Crime dramas so saturate television these days, you might think it would be harder to enjoy a movie like Seven. But I actually found that the morass only made it more clear how Seven rises above the norm.

Of course, Seven is a much more grittier, more gruesome tale than any you'll find on TV. I'm not just talking the network likes of CSI, NCIS, or Law & Order; it outpaces cable and pay cable fare too. But it's not just violent -- that would not be notable in and of itself. It's that the idea of the killer in Seven is horrible beyond most anything else that has been dramatized anywhere. The murders he commits are clever, elaborate, poetic, and demonic. It's a potent concoction that simultaneously draws you in and repulses you.

The film is also relentlessly bleak. Bleak in tone, bleak in look. Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker was apparently venting some frustrations about the time he lived in New York; director David Fincher was full of frustration from his disastrous experience working on Alien 3. It all came together in a film that visually looks drained; very moody and weary. And to be clear, I love this stark and depressing look, so appropriate for the material.

The acting in the movie is great. Morgan Freeman played this kind of "anchor in the chaos" character in many other films (and many of those great films), but that doesn't diminish his presence here. I would have loved to watch a weekly cop show based on his character, Detective Somerset. Brad Pitt is also strong as Detective Mills. He gives an understated performance at times, but it's just what the movie needs. He needs to be enough of a hothead to make the ending of the film work, but had he acted relentlessly belligerent for the duration, you'd question how he functioned as a detective for so long, why Somerset ever befriends him, why his wife had remained with him... or any number of things. The fact that the performance is more carefully modulated than that makes the whole thing work.

Gwyneth Paltrow's part is rather small, even smaller I think than I'd remembered, but she has to achieve a lot with her limited screen time, again to make the whole film pay off correctly. Solid work. And in other small roles, Richard Roundtree and R. Lee Ermey fill out the authenticity of this dark world. Also popping up, there's John C. McGinley (before Scrubs would completely change your image of him) and Michael Massee (playing his patented brand of slimeball). And a true M.V.P. in the cast is Leland Orser, the actor tasked with playing the man forced to carry out the grizzly Lust killing. To give a performance that amped up, with any kind of realism? A scary thought. And then to do it for director David Fincher, notorious for dozens, even hundreds, of takes? I can't fathom giving that performance that many times.

But, of course, the real man of the hour is Kevin Spacey as John Doe. His character is a perfect, calculating monster. He really only appears in the final act, but in his few scenes he perfectly nails calm and fury, intellect and madness... even humor. ("I didn't do that.") He's a great actor, and this is one of his career best.

Not everyone can stomach this film, I suppose, but for those who can, I think it's a top notch, grade A experience.