Abishai100
Member
This shocking David Fincher film presents the modern urban pseudo-spiritual crime-horror story about a veteran detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) who accepts one final case (before retiring) with his new eager rookie partner Mills (Brad Pitt) involving a very morbid serial killer named John Doe who murders people using the 7 Deadly (Christian) Sins as a model for incendiary punishments.
As the case goes on, we're introduced to new victims, each modeled after one of the sins (pride, wrath, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, and sloth).
Some of the crimes are nothing short of inhuman.
As Somerset pieces together the strange ironic 'Christian logic' to these crimes, his partner Mills (and his wife Tracy --- portrayed excellently by Gwyneth Paltrow) starts to unravel and become uneasy about the unnervingly bone-chilling 'truthfulness' to the sin-hauntingness cited by John Doe.
David Fincher has given us many mind-provoking (and strange) films such as Alien 3, The Game, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but Se7en stands out as a consummate work of 'atmospheric eeriness,' inviting American audiences to consider how the power of film can be used to convey images of mental deterioration.
I like comparing Se7en to Francis Ford Coppola's under-appreciated The Rainmaker, since they both nicely capture the human drama of 'bureaucracy-gone-wrong' and inspire movie-fans to come up with 'Literary Mad Libs.'
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SOMERSET: Our killer is reading lines from Chaucer.
MILLS: Maybe he likes reading the classics.
SOMERSET: Or maybe he wants us to think we don't appreciate the classics.
MILLS: What's classic about homicide?
SOMERSET: That's exactly what the killer is asking.
MILLS: I say we execute this nut before sending him to a 'fair trial.'
SOMERSET: We have to be careful; we may be walking into his trap.
MILLS: Why is crime considered a communication?
SOMERSET: Maybe John Doe hates talking.
MILLS: I think he wants to be a celebrity.
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I give this under-rated (in terms of symbolic value) film 4/5 stars, if I awarded a theme-comparable 'humanism-experimental' film such as Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde 5/5 stars (with 5 being highest-rated or top-quality).
Se7en (Wikipedia)
As the case goes on, we're introduced to new victims, each modeled after one of the sins (pride, wrath, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, and sloth).
Some of the crimes are nothing short of inhuman.
As Somerset pieces together the strange ironic 'Christian logic' to these crimes, his partner Mills (and his wife Tracy --- portrayed excellently by Gwyneth Paltrow) starts to unravel and become uneasy about the unnervingly bone-chilling 'truthfulness' to the sin-hauntingness cited by John Doe.
David Fincher has given us many mind-provoking (and strange) films such as Alien 3, The Game, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but Se7en stands out as a consummate work of 'atmospheric eeriness,' inviting American audiences to consider how the power of film can be used to convey images of mental deterioration.
I like comparing Se7en to Francis Ford Coppola's under-appreciated The Rainmaker, since they both nicely capture the human drama of 'bureaucracy-gone-wrong' and inspire movie-fans to come up with 'Literary Mad Libs.'
====
SOMERSET: Our killer is reading lines from Chaucer.
MILLS: Maybe he likes reading the classics.
SOMERSET: Or maybe he wants us to think we don't appreciate the classics.
MILLS: What's classic about homicide?
SOMERSET: That's exactly what the killer is asking.
MILLS: I say we execute this nut before sending him to a 'fair trial.'
SOMERSET: We have to be careful; we may be walking into his trap.
MILLS: Why is crime considered a communication?
SOMERSET: Maybe John Doe hates talking.
MILLS: I think he wants to be a celebrity.
====
I give this under-rated (in terms of symbolic value) film 4/5 stars, if I awarded a theme-comparable 'humanism-experimental' film such as Arthur Penn's Bonnie & Clyde 5/5 stars (with 5 being highest-rated or top-quality).
Se7en (Wikipedia)
