Seven Psycopaths (2012)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko

Director: Martin McDonagh

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama

Rating: A-

This movie is nothing like what you expect it to be.  That's the warning; the trailers and even the poster for this movie make it seem like it's about seven people, each one of them a psychopath, as they get up to shenanigans following a dognapping.  It is about that... but it's also about a lot more, and people who are implied to be a psychopath in the promotion for this (and even are implied to have a major role) aren't.  Not really, or at least not in the manner that you expect.

Marty (Farrell) is a screenwriter, currently working on a film titled Seven Psychopaths.  He has a few problems, however; one he's an alcoholic, two he's suffering from a bit of a writer's block, and three his screwball best friend, Billy (Rockwell) keeps on offering to help.  In addition to wanting to help Marty out, Billy is also a professional dognapper.  He and his partner, Hans (Walken), kidnap dogs then after a few days return them to their owners for a reward.  This is all going great, until they kidnap Bonny, the dog of a gangster, Charlie (Harrelson).  Charlie is willing to go to great lengths to get his dog back, killing and destroying anything that is related to this dognapping.  Through this all, Marty begins to find his inspiration for his film - although whether he or any of his friends will survive long enough to finish the script is debatable.

I did have a problem with how this film was advertised.  The trailer presents each of the stars as one of the psychopaths, and while this isn't entirely false, some of them are psychopaths, the reasons for which aren't what happens in the movie.  Furthermore, three of the stars aren't really stars and have very minor roles in the film - I loved Tom Waits' role, but it's not really an important one overall to the film, and neither of the women really have anything to do in this movie.  It's just very misleading to have them in presented as being so important and then barely have them present.

That having been said, I loved this film.  I love the way in which they tie in Marty's script and the overall plot of the film, and the struggle between the belief systems of the core characters - with Marty and Hans being pacifists, Billy being all gungho for the action sequences, and Charlie being hell bent on revenge and getting his dog back.  There are as many sequences of long talking as the characters articulate and argue about their beliefs as there are fight sequences, if not actually more.  A lot of this is a talk about what's going on with Marty's script, but everything that they say about the script relates to what's actually happening in the film's plot. It all really ties in nicely, which I loved.  The one thing that did worry me for a bit was that things wouldn't be resolved, or that the ending would be anticlimatical.  Having seen Martin McDonagh's films before, I should have known better than to worry.

The acting was also really great.  I thought the actors were really well cast.  Sam Rockwell plays the perfect weird, creepy guy, as does Christopher Walken, and to have them together is just awesome.  I thought Colin Farrell did a really good job of providing the straight man to them, particularly Rockwell, while also embracing his character's issues - somehow, Colin Farrell does drunk Irishman with a lot of life problems in general.  It was really good and made me want to watch it again and, even better, made me want to watch more of McDonagh's films.  The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was put on In Brughes.

The Hunger Games (2012)

Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley
Director: Gary Ross
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rating: A-

The film adaptation of the bestselling book, The Hunger Games brings us to a dystopian world where every year two tributes, one male and one female, are selected from each of the twelve districts of Panem to participate in the Hunger Games, essentially a televised fight to the death.  Think “The Lottery” meets Gladiator, with an element of Big Brother.  The film is set around the 74^th Hunger Games and follows District 12’s female tribute, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) as she struggles to overcome the odds and survive.  In order to be able to return home, she must be the only surviving tribute at the end of the games, including District 12’s male tribute, Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson).

The film does lose some of the novel’s story and doesn’t go into as much detail in regards to the political background of Panem.  I don’t actually feel that further detail is needed, though.  There was a war, it ended badly, and as a consequence the winners imposed a hugely cruel consequence – the Hunger Games.  What further background information is really needed?  The actual games aren’t as action packed as one might have expected – but the book itself isn’t that action filled either.  I really liked the way that they handled the action that they did show.  I also really like the way that they show the backstory and what’s going on outside of the Games; the book is very cerebral and only follows Katniss. The movie, however, avoids utilizing narration and instead shows you the things that book-Katniss only thinks about.  My one problem with the film is that I felt it cut too much of the relationship between Katniss and Peeta.  Some of my favourite parts of the book were the moments between the two of them, so I was disappointed to have that aspect of the film marginalized.  I did really like the film’s ending.  I really felt that it ended things on a happier note than in the book.