Seven
Year of release : 1995
Run time : 2h7m
Genre : Crime / Thriller / Horror / Noir
Cast : Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey
Director : David Fincher
Police detective Somerset is only one week away from retirement. He seems to be tired of this job, and just wants to leave the city full of crime, for a peaceful life somewhere in the country on a farm. He also seems to ask more questions about his cases and scenes of the crime, thing which annoys his colleagues.
David Mills just transferred to the same police station Somerset works at, and is eager to start his job. He is partnered with Somerset, and they go to a crime scene of an obese man who seems to have been forced to eat until he died.
Somerset doesn’t want the case, as he feels is gonna go on and on, being a serial k1ller, while Mills wants the case. Somerset says this case shouldn’t be his last, and it shouldn’t be Mills’ first case either, due to its nature, thing which infuriates Mills, who has a bit of a temper.
Their superior refuses to give it to Mills who wants it, and tells Somerset to suck it up and do his job, for he has no other detectives.
Mills goes to another crime scene the next day, as he finds a lawyer who was k1lled in his office over the weekend. Looking around, he sees the word “Greed” written in blood on the floor.
Hearing the obese man was fed pieces of plastic, Somerset goes back to his place to look around, and finds the pieces were scraped from the floor. Moving the fridge, he finds the word “Gluttony” written in grease, with a quote from Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, on the wall behind it.
Talking to his superior while Mills listens, Somerset tells him there are 7 deadly sins, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy and Wrath, which means there’s gonna be 5 more victims. Again, he says he doesn’t want to get involved in it, while Mills wants the case.
Somerset goes to the library, looking for books with the 7 deadly sins, sending a letter to Mills, telling him to read them. To his surprise, Mills does.
Because Somerset leaves, he has to share the office with Mills, who gets his office. Mills’ wife calls him, and wants to talk to Somerset, inviting him to dinner.
After dinner, the two talk about the case, and Somerset seems to have finally found someone with the same passion for the job and attention to details. Looking at the picture of the lawyer’s wife, who’s had her eyes circled, the two go talk to her, and she notices a painting is hung upside down. Going back to the office, they find fingerprints behind the painting writing “ Help me”.
They find who the prints belong to, and once they get to his place, they realize he’s a victim too, and was one who had suffered the longest, being tied to the bed for a whole year, while he slowly decomposed due to starvation.
At the hospital, Mills fights off what he thinks to be a journalist taking his picture, but he later finds out it was their serial k1ller.
Tracy, Mills’ wife, calls Somerset to talk to him, as she doesn’t have any friends, having moved from upstate (the movie doesn’t give town and city names ), and can’t adjust to the city life, as she hates it, for she doesn’t like the rampant crime going around. She tells him she is pregnant and she doesn’t know if to keep the child due to this, and Somerset shares a personal story about why he broke up with the woman he almost married, because she was pregnant and he couldn’t deal with bringing a child into such a world.
Talking to Mills, Somerset has the idea of asking one of his friends in the bureau to look up who took books from the library about the seven deadly sins (as certain books are flagged), so they could find the k1ller, and they find his address.
When he comes home he sees them by his door, and runs away opening fire on them.
I personally enjoyed the movie. It’s an atmospheric movie, as it’s always raining (only at the end of the movie the sun is shining, as if a false defeat of good over evil. Apparently the rain was real! ), and the colors are dark, desaturated, consisting of deep greens, grays, and blue, by using the bleach bypass technique for the gritty, metallic look. The outside looks bleak, through the use of cold blues, while the inside uses warm colors to give a feeling of safety .
The leading characters are likeable, they are good at their job, they love what they do, although Somerset is tired of the city which seems to get worse and worse through the rise of the crime, feeling also expressed by Mills’ wife, who doesn’t like the city she moved into and doesn’t want to raise a child there.
The movie takes place over the course of a week.
Watching this movie it felt the movie Saw (2004) was inspired by it.
The acting was good. Kevin Spacey played his character with calm, you’d think he was at a resort, he seemed so peaceful. Apparently his character was played by another actor before his face is revealed, and Kevin Spacey didn’t want his name in the credits for he didn’t want the audience to know who’s the k1ller.
I liked the soundtrack, how it built up at the dangerous, climactic scenes.
The visual effects were good.
Seven has a rating of 8.6 from the audiences of IMDB, 84% and 95% from the critics and audiences of Rotten Tomatoes, and a 65 critic score against an 8.6 audience score from Metacritic.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B.
Seven grossed 327.3 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 34 million dollars, being the 7th highest grossing movie of the year 1995.
Sylvester Stallone and Denzel Washington refused to play Mills, while Al Pacino, Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman refused to play Somerset. The script writer, Andrew Kevin Walker, envisioned William Hurt as Somerset. He also stated he wrote the script after moving from a suburban Pennsylvania town to New York, and experienced a culture shock due to the increase in crime and dr@g abuse in the city, so the leading characters are allegedly based on his reaction and experiences around the city where crime and sin ran rampant.
Although the city is not named in the movie, the film was shot in Los Angeles.
Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains mature content.
You can watch the full movie for free, on the Ok.Ru platform.
Rating : It’s so money !