seven psychopaths, a review.

or why martin mcdonagh is one of the only people working in hollywood with principles.

it's impossible to ignore the trend at the beginning "seven psychopaths" (written and directed by martin mcdonagh): all of the women are black and all of them are being terrorized by lunatic men running around waving guns. or... pens and bottles of whiskey (looking at you, colin farrell). ...with one exception, that is, and she's as psychotic as the men.

anyone with a consciousness of "race struggles" & "american history" is probably be feeling queasy at this prospect. but in light of my familiarity with (and affection for) the depraved rantings that characterize this playwright's oeuvre, i knew that if i just waited it out, he would come around to his point.

sure enough, it didn't take long for the movie to develop into a fully-fledged satire of the hyper-violence (and sexualization of violence) that is so characteristic of hollywood movies today, by depicting scene after scene of the very thing he criticized. it didn't hurt that 5 of the 8 (or something like that; I didn't count) previews were for movies of the "gratuitous-shooting-people-without-a-good-reason-except-that-guns-go-bang-and-we-like-explosions" genre.

mcdonagh, who has been called the "most influential contemporary irish playwright" (never mind that he grew up in england and has spent little time ireland) is known in the theatre world (and increasingly in hollywood, since "six shooter", "in bruges" and now "seven psychopaths")  for his maniacal characters and gruesome tales is, in fact, a pacifist. perhaps the best explanation for his motives in writing these pieces is explained in his play "the pillowman". the main character, katurian, is a writer of horrific tales (like mcdonagh), who explains that the reason he writes of such depravity is because he lives in a world that is depraved and when you live in such a world, how can you bury your head in the sand and write of a world that is sane?

seven psychopaths is mcdonagh at his best; it does just this.

from the very start, his stream of pathetic-black-woman-victims makes it impossible to ignore (for once) the racist trope so commonly featured in hollywood films. the fact that they are especially pathetic and the white men tormentors are especially maniacal only serves to heighten the indictment. but at the same time, the first major clue that mcdonagh is not a raging racist is that all the major romantic relationships are mixed race and the woman is black. but the woman is not just black, she is the stronger of the two (especially in the case of hans; a fantastic christopher walkin, and myra; a stunning and dignified linda bright clay)

but the real thesis doesn't become clear until rather later in the movie as billy (sam rockwell) grows more and more insistent that no movie is complete without a climactic, over-the-top shootout scene in which nearly everyone dies in myriad absurd and gorey fashion, the hallmark of the hollywood shoot-'em-up (all this, much to pacifists marty (farrell) and hans' disgust), which culminated in a finale that was just as bloodily preposterous as the playwright was in his late '90s glory.