Se7en

I'm not what you would call a huge Brad Pitt fan. Typically, I avoid movies with him in them just like I avoid movies with Colin Farrell in them. Not saying they are bad actors or that they make usually bad movies (well, okay, I actually kind of am), but I won't exactly break the bank to watch their movies in the theaters. Maybe I'll catch the half-priced matinee, but I generally just watch 'em on the tube if nothing else is on. Remember the hype there was for World War Z? When I heard Brad Pitt's name mentioned as the star the movie fell off my radar completely.

But... I will stand up for a few of Pitt's movies. Inglourious Basterds? Hell yeah. Fight Club? Make that two hell yeahs. Any others? I know I've seen a few, but there are no others that come to mind at the moment. Oh yeah, I suppose he was in a certain vampire flick with Tom Cruise, but that alone is enough to make me not like that movie. Vampires bore me for the most part and Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt being together in a movie is just plain nauseating.

However, there is this film called Se7en that co-stars Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox from Scrubs), R. Lee Ermey, and some other guy who won't be mentioned here as the sadistic killer named John Doe. Yeah, you can look up who played him and spoil the fun, but you won't hear it from me here.

Pitt was adequate in his role and Morgan Freeman was up to standard as usual, but the guy who stole the show didn't make an appearance until the final twenty minutes of the movie.

The villain himself contains shades of Hannibal Lecter, but there's enough deviation from the basic character formula that it seems more like a character that could go toe to toe with Lecter rather than ride his on his coattails.

David Fincher's previous movie was Alien 3 and the signs of growth from that film to this one are fairly obvious or should be. His later movie with Brad Pitt called Fight Club continued this pattern, but I don't think even Fight Club could topple Se7en. No, I definitely think that this particular film was Fincher firing on all cylinders. Plus a fat guy eats himself to death in this movie so that automatically puts it knotch above the rest as far as I'm concerned.

I can see why this movie was considered to be the heir to The Silence of the Lambs as well as the stepping stone to 2004's Saw (a film I'm so glad I discovered before the sequels were put out on a freakin' assembly line).

In terms of gore and grit this film brings it with the best of 'em, but there is also a bit of subtlety. The fact that all of the murders take place off screen and that the grosser parts are only mentioned rather that shown is a good example of what I am talking about.

So if you are a sadist like me and like your mismatched police buddy movies with a side of drip and goo then you could do no worse than to check out this fine flick.