Seven Psychopaths

Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths continues in the vein of In Bruges, both are action comedies with better characterization than most of their ilk. One can tell that actors flock to McDonagh's scripts by the impressive roster of thesps on hand: Harry Dean Stanton, Michael Pitt, Abbie Cornish, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Gabourey Sidibe, Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell. Each get to show off their skills with Walken's final monologue particularly affecting.

The influence of Tarantino's work is evident as this film maps the same seamy territory of LA's less glamorous side: pancake houses, working class bars and warehouses. McDonagh utilizes flashbacks like Chinese boxes to structure his film much akin to Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. What makes this film an advancement for McDonagh is a more sophisticated and evocative visual style than In Bruges. 

Indeed, the concluding sequences in Joshua Tree National Park are an apt correlative to his characters need to escape, not only the villainous clutches of Mr. Harrelson, but also the reductive and corrupt milieu of Hollywood itself. A trio of scofflaws are also escaping the demands of adulthood. Like Huck and Jim, they are camping out in the wild away from the day to day grind, but also escaping the civilizing influence of women. McDonagh acknowledges this in postmodern fashion by having his screenwriter protagonist, played by Colin Farrell, criticized for the portrayal 0f women in his script, a charge McDonagh must know could be levelled at his own film. 

The only women of note in Seven Psychopaths are a Russian model who is schtupping two of the titular psychopaths and the protagonist's girlfriend. Ms. Cornish plays the long suffering girlfriend of Mr. Farrell's character. She disappears from the film, except for a brief sequence, after the first third. Sam Rockwell plays Farrell's best friend whose criminal activities with Mr. Walken helps put the kibosh to the Farrell/Cornish union. Mr. Rockwell gives the most remarkable performance of the ensemble. It is his psychopathic character that exemplifies the regressive journey of this film's men.

Sam Rockwell epitomizing regressive masculinity in Seven Psychopaths

Most psychopaths in fiction and film are violent monsters who are able to hide in plain sight behind a respectable bourgeoise façade: such as Norman Bates, Patrick Bateman or the sheriff in Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. However, after working for some time in the mental health field. I've encountered a number of psychopaths who hide their violent madness not behind propriety, but behind an adolescent bravado. They are manchilds who cannot forge an adult male (and they are invariably male) identity. This is the type of psychopath Sam Rockwell is playing. It is a man who wishes to lose himself in adolescent play. 

Rockwell's character is introduced making play faces at the door of Farrell and Cornish's house. Despite showing regret, Rockwell's character delights in wreaking havoc on Farrell's relationship with Cornish. I don't think it is a stretch to say that he breaks up Farrell's relationship because Rockwell unconsciously senses that Farrell is his true love; women are more for sex play than love to the adolescent male mind. The relationship is similar to what Leslie Fiedler called the "sacred marriage of males that Fiedler finds between Huck and Jim and in such works as Moby Dick.

Rockwell's character's regressive tendencies become more pronounced as we reach Seven Psychopaths dénouement. Whether wearing a childish skullcap or devouring Cheetos, Rockwell seems to be regressing to latency age. The capper is his desire to have a final shootout as a fitting end; a childish desire to go out in a proverbial blaze of glory. A desire that is gratified.

Martin McDonagh's oeuvre descends from the black comedy of Wilder and, especially, Kubrick. A good current comparison would be Shane Black whose films have also been buddy movies set within the action genre with black comic elements. McDonagh's films seem more thoughtful and better shot than many, including Black's, so I eagerly await his upcoming Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. (11/17/17)