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Seven Psychopaths

Starring: Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, and Christopher Walken
Directed by: Martin McDonagh
Screenplay by: Martin McDonagh

     I think the title of the movie explains itself.  You know you're going to be seeing something weird.
     Marty (Colin Farrell) is a Hollywood screenwriter struggling to write a good film called Seven Psychopaths.  But, he can't seem to come up with seven characters all to be psychopaths.  His friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) decides to help him come up with these seven crazy characters.  But Billy and Hans (Christopher Walken) kidnap missing dogs and return them to their owners.
      Then Billy kidnaps a Shih Tzu belonging to a gangster (Woody Harrelson) and he doesn't want to give the dog back.  So we have this crazy gangster who's willing to do anything to get his dog back, a screenwriter just trying to write a good story, and a few psychotic guys in general.  This is going to play out very strangely.
      The story is not terribly clear.  We slowly see Billy transform from this seemingly normal guy to this psychopath over the course of the movie, but it's not clear why this happens.  He is the star of the show and everyone else just seems to be slightly more peripheral.  But there is an interesting thing that happens in the story.  As we watch Marty write the screenplay, it begins to play out in the real life world of the film.  The characters slowly become the characters Marty is writing about.
      This film has some of the worst acting I've seen all year.  Let's be honest, Colin Farrell couldn't have been much worse than he was in Total Recall earlier this year.  So I thought this would be a better performance for him.  Sadly my friends, I was wrong.  He delivers a simple, unemotional, and pretty boring performance.  Sam Rockwell has all the life and energy of the characters in the film and he just blows it all way out of proportion.  Woody Harrelson plays the gangster, and executes his role poorest of all.  He tries to be way more intimidating than he really is (partly because his gun never works).  He does not come across as the guy you don't want to mess with in a dark alley.  Even the legendary Christopher Walken isn't totally terrific in this film.  I think he's the funniest of all the characters in the film and makes the film fun to watch.  But after all this bad acting, is it worth it to see the film just for Christopher Walken?
      Seven Psychopaths is easily one of the weirdest and worst films of the year.  Occasionally we see a film that gives us only one thought when we walk out of the theater.  That thought is: WTF??????  This is the latest of films that do this to us.  Don't bother dropping the money for this film.  If you want to see it, just wait until the DVD release.
      Seven Psychopaths is just to crazy for me to give a grade above D+ status, so that's what I'm giving it.

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