"Seven Psychopaths" R
Martin McDonagh;s mob movie spoof seems to riff liberally from Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, old pulp westerns, movies about authors with writer's block, and of all things, A Fish Called Wanda. The story opens with a starving writer and his friend who want to make a story about psychopaths and will stop at nothing to do it. They enlist the help of a crazy old man who with his friend is running a dog kidnapping scam. The younger guy steals the fancy dogs and then the old guy gets the reward and returns the dogs, like a ransom. When their hairball plan goes wrong as they accidentally dog nap a mobster's favorite shiatsu, a little poodle like dog, they become targeted by other psychopaths who want to off them. It helps that Colin Farrell plays it fairly straight, or it just wouldn't work. Woody Harrelson spoofs many of his late persona, as it has been decades since he was that nice guy on Cheers, and he's the mobster. The old guy is Christopher Walken, who for the past decade and a half is playing a younger Marlon Brando complete with accent, but it works because he's so completely nuts in this role. At one point a bad guy is aiming a gun at him, and tells him, 'I have a gun' and he replies 'so what?', and there is another clever scene in the desert when one of them clearly channels a Rodriquez style gunfight. Mostly they have fun with the wordy talk back of Tarantino movies, with some clearly offish lines. It's more of a farce than a comedy, and more of a spoof than a mob drama. No idea why there is a subplot about a Vietnamese crazy dude, but even the writers in the movie act like they didn't need him.
Review by Adam Browne
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