Pride, envy, gluttony, lust, wrath, greed, and sloth. These are the seven deadly sins, which is what the murderer in Se7en kills perpetrators of. Two cops, one new (Brad Pitt) and…guess what…one one week from retirement (Morgan Freeman)! Bet you didn’t see that coming! That’s about the only cliché/formula in this imaginative movie.
Detective Somerset (Freeman) lives alone and is finally leaving the force. However, when he gets called in to solve one last murder, about the death of a very obese man, he feels that something isn’t right, which his new partner David Mills (Pitt) agrees with. Soon, when the state’s best defense attorney is killed, and they find the word “greed” written in blood, they can only guess that the killer kills relating to the seven deadly sins.
Mostly exciting, good acting does not a good movie make. Usually it does, but there was something that I was missing, something that didn’t connect with me. I wasn’t drawn in. Instead of feeling like I was one with the movie, I felt like a fourteen year old watching a famous thriller. Of course, I need to be drawn in to fully enjoy it, but I wasn’t in this case. It was just something disjointed with the whole picture. I’m not really sure what didn’t draw me in, but I wish it had.
For the most part, I had no idea where this was going. I did have some guesses, but, of course, they were all wrong. I wasn’t freaked-out tense, nor completely what’s-gonna-happen-next tense. It was a weird mix, but not many movies have that. I had no idea what WAS going to happen next, but I wasn’t as excited as I was in, say, Changing Lanes.
Pitt was very good in this, but not as good as in David Fincher’s later movie Fight Club. Freeman was his usual self-very good. For some reason, I was reminded of his performance in High Crimes for some reason, since these two movies couldn’t be any more different.
Se7en is a controversial film, but I didn’t see it was that explicit or anything. Sure, when the gluttony victim died, I cringed, but I wasn’t vomiting or the like. Overall, I would recommend Se7en, but it isn’t as good as most people make it out to be.
Rated R for grisly afterviews of horrific and bizarre killings, and for strong language.